


A Fresh Start

by Pianogirl



Series: Rules for Dating [2]
Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers - All Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Avengers Movie Night, Awkwardness, Clint and Tony are good bros but bad matchmakers, Clint is always dropping in from the ceiling and I don't know why, Dating, Developing Relationship, F/F, Female Steve Rogers, Femslash, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Friendship, Genderswap, M/M, Romance, Schmoop, Slow Build, people being good to each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-12
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-07 14:57:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pianogirl/pseuds/Pianogirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"You mean a date?" Steph blurts, and promptly blushes, deeply and uncontrollably, like she hasn't done since she was all of fourteen and got tongue-tied around her best friend. She can feel mortification and hope and pure adrenaline chasing themselves across her face as she struggles to regain some kind of equilibrium.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Yes," Natasha says, too loudly. "A date. Um. Yes. Date. Hmm." Natasha is never this... verbose.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Steph's smile feels like she’s waking up from the ice all over again, scared and euphoric and disoriented and powerfully alive.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Yes," she says, and impulsively grabs Natasha's hand back and pulls her closer for a sweaty, awkward hug that Natasha obviously has no clue how to react to. "It's a date. I'd like that. A lot. Um. Thank you?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Natasha just smiles, her composure slipping back in place, and shakes her head a little, looking dazedly amused. "No thanks necessary, Cap."</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. From Afar

**Author's Note:**

> Holy crap I made a thing. I was sitting around thinking how genderswap!Steve aka Stephanie would make the perfect romantic foil for Natasha and suddenly words! And pages! This is my first fic ever ever ever and I do not know how it happened. It is unbetaed so be kind, and I am endlessly grateful for any concrit anyone wants to leave in the comments.
> 
> Also, this takes place after the movie but Phil is still alive because reasons.
> 
> FYI, in my head-canon Steph Rogers looks like a buffer version of Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica, in the first season when she was super-badass. Especially that scene in the miniseries where she’s jogging around the ship. What? I have a super-specific and only slightly stalkerish head-canon!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are quietly MFEO (meant for each other).

Stephanie Rogers is no femme fatale. She’s not a seductress, and she’s too poor of a liar to be a spy. She’s smart, no question, and she can be devious and complicated and occasionally ruthless, but at the end of the day, her favorite way of solving a problem is to punch it. Simple, direct, honorable in a rough kind of way. It’s why she and Thor get along so well. They punched it out, and then they were good.

She's cropped that all-American blond hair to just above her ears and auctioned off for charity all those star-spangled Captain America showcase dresses that made a mockery of the uniform she'd fought to wear. When she's not out fighting evil these days, she's lounging around the house or hitting the bars with the team wearing soft, faded cargo pants and T-shirts. For around the house, there are the ones with band logos that Tony keeps slipping into her things in an effort to educate her about modern rock culture (she still doesn’t get it, but she likes the designs and has started to work them into sketches). When she heads out, she steers clear of the logos (no-one needs a media frenzy around Captain America’s supposed endorsement of some obscure but no doubt offensive-to-someone group) and goes with the plain T-shirts she managed to order online, much to Tony’s loud dismay and secret pride. Those are black, brown, beige, or olive green -- camo colors are comforting, somehow. Even when she’s not literally blending into the trees, they make her feel a little safer, a little less... obvious.

She hasn’t always been allowed to do it her own way. When short, scrawny Stephie Rogers had chopped off her hair, bullshitted her way through the army health exam, and caught Howard Stark's eye by virtue of sheer refusal to ever stay knocked down, it hadn't been so she could provide inspirational superpowered cleavage, but it was the 40s, and she took what she could get. Her options were get kicked out in disgrace or get turned into a pin-up girl/lab experiment for national pride, and she had hopes that she could turn the guinea pig gig into something that would actually help her country. And yeah, she'd gotten the serum, gotten strong, beyond strong, even though secretly she thinks Howard was the only one who expected it not to kill her. She'd broken rank and saved the day, and that earned her some respect, especially among those she served with. But for the most part, with most people, tits and spandex and parlor-trick strength was still all she was, back in her own time. A role model to some, a joke to others, but never herself, and never deployed to her full potential unless she broke the rules.

It’s funny, really. The Avengers all think Steph is such a stick in the mud for rules, even now that they’ve mostly realized that she doesn’t have as much of a stick up her ass as most of them had assumed at the beginning. None of them realize it’s just that she’s learned the value of picking your battles.

In some ways, there are fewer battles now. Since waking up in the twenty-first century, she's found that the country's expectations of her as a national icon have relaxed -- or, at least, she has a bit more freedom these days to ignore them and still have her place in the world. She doesn’t have to play to the crowd that’s uncomfortable with the concept of a strong woman; she doesn’t have to balance her ability to throw someone across the room with makeup and skirts and false deference. She’s Captain America, damn it, in an era where plenty of women are military captains and higher with the full respect due them (she tries to mention those women in every public appearance now -- they are _her_ heroes), no super-serum required.

All of which is to say, she has a healthy respect for authority and hierarchy and the needs of the nation, but when it comes to her own life, she’s fully committed to playing by her own damn rules, one way or another. God knows she’s earned it.

Because for all the ways that things are better in some ways, it’s not easy here. She misses Bucky, and his clueless, dogged loyalty. He never understood, but he made sure it never mattered, a true friend to the end.

She misses Peggy, GOD how she misses Peggy, with her steely voice and gentle hands. Peggy, who knew exactly what she was hiding and stood by her anyway, who cooled her forehead when she was sick and in pain, who taught her to dance, who sent her off on that last, hopeless mission with a single, soft kiss. Her first kiss.

It’s hard not to wonder now what she really meant to Peggy. What that kiss meant. It’s hard to accept that she’ll never know.

Avengers aside, Steph is lonely, alone in ways that somehow seem even more painful now that she’s allowed to be who she is. It’s ok now to be tough, to be in command, to be herself. It’s ok to love who she loves. She could tell someone about Peggy, about missed chances and regrets, and they would nod and sympathize and maybe try to set her up with some nice girl from the SHIELD offices.

But now that the world isn’t boxing her in, she has absolutely no idea where to start. Everyone else caught up to her, and rushed past, and here she is in the dust with her pride and her honor and her punching bags that are just too easy to knock down when she’s working out her demons.

Well, she thinks darkly as she sends another one flying across the room, at least Tony’s working on fixing the punching bags.

************

Standing outside the training room, waiting for Steph to finish up so she can run through today’s routine, Natasha can't take her eyes off her teammate. Steph's openness is completely fascinating to her. How can a woman be so terrible at hiding her every thought, and still command such power? It’s more magnetic than any sexy ruse could ever be, but Natasha knows it can't be easy, that Steph hates her incurably bad poker face (ironically, Natasha knows this because she can read it on her face). Perhaps in compensation, Steph’s all mission and protocol, all the time, even when the rest of the team tries to draw her into their bizarre social lives around the mansion. She’ll hang out with the group, but outside of barked commands and formally presented strategy, she’s pretty quiet. And she never volunteers any personal information, like she’s constantly trying to backpedal from whatever her face has revealed. So Natasha usually knows _what_ she’s feeling, but she rarely understands _why_.

Natasha has always liked people who challenge her.

Wanting someone like this, free of any other agenda, feels new somehow. Fresh. Exhilarating.

Scary.

Natasha has never in her life backed down from scary.

Though she’ll admit, she usually faces it with a cooler head than she’s able to muster for this particular situation.

She suspects that Steph likes her back. She knows Steph wants her; it’s there in her restless eyes, her slightly stiff body language and flushed cheeks when Nat subtly brushes past her at briefings.

She is one hundred percent certain that Steph will wait years to make the first move.

Dropping down next to her (Natasha never even startles anymore when he does this; he needs to find some new people to annoy), Clint also eyes Steph, who's defeated five punching bags so far but seems no closer to vanquishing her demons of the day, then moves his gaze back to his partner and oldest friend and snorts out a laugh.

"Shush," Natasha says, tilting her head slightly without breaking her gaze.

"But--"

"No."

"I didn't even--"

"Indeed."

"Fine." Clint holds both hands up in surrender, smirking.

"And stop smiling."

"Aw, Nat, now that's not--"

"Stop. Smiling."

"Stopped."

But Clint's never seen her be quite this transparent and reticent at the same time, and he's not about to let it go. Still, he can be discreet. Well, sort of. Ok, maybe not at all. He needs some perspective from someone else; he courted Phil with scorching innuendo over the comms followed by blatant invasion of privacy via air ducts, which doesn’t seem like Natasha’s style. Thor doesn't understand nuance. Phil, despite being head-over-heels for Clint, has made it very clear that he wants no part of the Avengers’ interpersonal shenanigans. Bruce is maybe a bit too anti-risk, given how long he’s managed to ignore Tony’s deeply unsubtle longing gazes from across the crowded lab. That leaves only... Mr. I-like-to-poke-giant-green-rage-monsters-but-still-can’t-manage-to-ask-them-out-on-dates himself. Well, he’s not exactly pulling from a well-adjusted pool of talent here. Giving Natasha a quick hug and mumbling something about new exploding arrows, Clint heads off in search of Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have the next few chapters of this mapped out and partially written (their first date is complete, I just have to get us through the connect-y parts), and I promise there is much more dialogue, much more Natasha/Steph interaction, and much more friendship-building and terrible romantic advice courtesy of the remaining Avengers (plus Clint/Phil and Bruce/Tony in the background!) now that I've gotten the setup out of the way. I'm aiming to update at least once a week.
> 
> And finally, it should be noted that my love of Stephanie Rogers femmeslash was inspired by Margo_Kim's wonderful fic The Idiot Box, which features an awesomely perfect Stephanie Rogers/Antonia Stark pairing. Everyone should go read it now.


	2. Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony tries to help

The first time Tony met Steph, she was in full Captain America spandex and he was, well, Tony. He said all the wrongest things he could think of, just to get the worst over with, because what chance was there, really, that Captain America would hit it off with his asshole self? Steph was still raw from her “all your friends are dead and everything you’ve ever known is gone” briefing. She gave him a black eye, which he admitted on the spot was fair, though it was out of character enough for her (if not for the average SHIELD operative) that she still remembers it with a flash of shame. After, Tony spent 30 hours straight in R&D coming up with an upgraded uniform (thicker fabric, fight-friendly pants, a nice protective collar in place of the original scoop neck, fewer spangles). When she asked him where it came from, he just rolled his bloodshot eyes and mumbled something about standardizing team attire.

It became a bit of a game, this dance of trading wary gestures of peace back and forth. Steph found her old journals from the early guinea pig days -- Howard had been a great support, and she’d written about him a lot -- and copied them for Tony, dropping them in his mailbox with no comment. Tony invited her out for microbrews in oblique thanks, regaled her with hair-raising tales of his own early days with SHIELD, and proceeded to get more drunk than one should really be able to manage on beer alone. Steph promptly enlisted Bruce's quietly amused help in adding Bucky's famous hangover cure to Tony's personal database (he has a full file on hangover cures, with meticulous notes on their effects, and she’s confident that Bucky’s will blow the other options out of the water in every field but... ugh... taste). Eventually, it was difficult to remember that they'd ever been anything but friends.

Tony is... easy. There’s a lot of bluster there, but if you know how to read him, he always says what he means, in a twisted kind of self-defeating way that always leaves Steph torn between laughing at him and putting him in a headlock until he realizes he’s a worthwhile person. And he doesn’t keep expecting her to be a poster child for honor and fairness and good grammar like the rest of the world, which is a relief. (Coulson still looks like he’s swallowed a butterfly every time she swears in front of him.) She’s fast become the go-to gal when Tony's overindulged and needs someone to haul his drunken self home and bully him into water and aspirin. Bruce negotiates too much, Clint and Thor are usually a few sheets to the wind themselves, and Natasha always loses patience and just knocks Tony the rest of the way unconscious, sticks him in a cab, and trusts JARVIS to sort him out once he gets home.

Steph knows she should be more disapproving when this happens, but she has to admire Natasha’s particular brand of controlling the situation.

It’s Tony who, catching her watching him watching Bruce with a tiny furrow between her eyebrows, figures it out first and appoints himself mentor, wingman, and matchmaker.

She’s up to date on the politics, the sixty-odd years of social evolution that carried on above her frozen body. But it’s one thing to know the changes and another thing to _feel_ them. It’s vindicating and freeing, but incredibly disorienting, and she hasn’t quite figured out the patterns of which taboos have disappeared and which remain intact. She hasn’t talked to anyone about her orientation (she hasn’t talked to anyone here about much of anything personal), but then again, neither have they. There’s some sort of secret code she doesn’t have yet, and she watches Bruce and Tony dance around each other and desperately deciphers what she can.

Tony corners her in the lab, unconvincingly denies any interest in Bruce, is furthermore _horrified_ that she would even consider using _any_ of the Avengers as models of human behavior, and proceeds in his patented bull-in-a-china-shop manner to put himself in charge of her social life.

Steph is pretty sure this is leading nowhere good, but she’s morbidly curious to see where it goes.

“So,” Tony says, rubbing his hands together in a maniacal evil-scientist way that Steph can only pray is an affectation, “obviously we need to set you up with someone! Let’s see, there’s Maria, Janet, Pepper, Darcy--”

“Tony, it is statistically improbable that every single one of our female co-workers dates women.”

“Stephanie -- nice imitation of Bruce, by the way -- you are Captain America. You are, uh, smokin’, as they say.”

“Tony, even in the 1940s no-one said smokin’, and also, I am not--”

“Whatever. Point is, for you, anyone will be a lesbian.” He gestures expansively. “The world is your oyster. Hell, even _I’d_ \--”

“ _Tony_...”

“Right, right.” Tony waves his hands vaguely in the air and visibly redirects his brain to the topic at hand. “So. Kate. Betty. Monica. Any of this sparking any interest?”

Steph sighs. “Tony, I do not think a fix-up is what I --”

“Heather. Jen. Natasha.” Steph can’t stop herself from going still. Tony’s eyes widen. “Wow, Cap, that is some varsity level dating material there. Like, the Mount Everest of crushes. Captain America, I raise my hand in salutation. Um, how much experience do you have exactly?”

“Tony, we are not talking about this.” Steph buries her face in her hands. She’d be happy if she never had to show it again. Isn’t there a megalomaniac out there somewhere trying to destroy the world? Really, now would be good.

“Right. Well, I say let’s start with people you don’t know and never have to see again. That’s always a good way to feel things out. Feel things out, heh.” Tony waggles his eyebrows at her. Steph just shakes her head.

He drags her to a lesbian club. It’s a disaster. Steph is always tense in public, never sure what face she should have on or whether she’s about to be recognized without the cowl or what she should do if she is. Who she’s expected to be. Who she wants to be. Now it’s ten times worse as she tries to figure out what’s expected in this latest of the thousand unfamiliar environments she’s been asked to process in the last year. Everything is happening too fast.

Tony is a dutifully attentive wingman as eight women, in succession, hit on Stephanie, decide as she struggles to decipher their words over the loud beat that she’s not their type after all, and abruptly excuse themselves. Tony pulls her away from Admirer Number 9 with an anxious expression and a story about a headache and not wanting to cramp her style and an early-morning meeting and a bunch of other nonsense that no-one who knows Tony Stark would believe for a millisecond. Steph isn’t sure she’s ever been so grateful to anyone in her life.

At least now she knows where _not_ to start.

“So, wow,” says Tony on the limo ride home. “You really have no clue what you’re doing.”

“No,” Steph says shortly. “And you are not helping.” Her charitability is running low after the night she’s had. Disappointment and shame and doubt and frustration burn through her. She wishes she could get drunk.

Happy is conspicuously silent.

“Not even--”

“Tony, it was the 1940s. I was a sickly, strange kid, and then I was a national icon. There wasn’t a lot of room for romance in between. Of any kind.”

“Sorry,” Tony mutters. He does sound sorry. Steph sighs and watches New York speed by outside. All the lights. It’s so bright. Nothing is familiar.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Tony’s silent for a few minutes. Finally, he punches her shoulder lightly. “So, Natasha, huh?”

Steph lets her head bang against the window.

“Right,” says Tony.

**********

Finding Steph a girlfriend or even a one-night stand might be above Tony’s (very, very high) pay grade, but he’s determined that the next best thing he can do as her self-appointed best friend is get her in better with the team. He’s the first to admit he’s not the poster child for social adjustment, but damn, Cap needs friends like no-one he’s ever met.

Plus, he and Clint have made a plan. A top-secret, super-tricky, can’t-possibly-fail, spy-proof, sky-high awesome plan. Tony _loves_ plans.

**********

Steph is used to hanging back from those she serves with. Keeping people at arm’s length makes it easier to give or take orders. Tony’s having none of it.

“You’re in charge, we get it,” he says airily. “But none of us is exactly _normal_ ,” he spits out that last like a dirty word, “and we only have each other. I promise you can get drunk -- oh, right, maybe not that -- or make a joke or say something stupid and we’ll still follow you to the ends of the earth in battle.”

He makes a point of inviting Steph to movie night with the team (Clint loves to outsmart the plots and Thor needs even more pop culture education than Steph; no-one knows why Bruce comes) and refuses to take no for an answer. “It’ll be, what do they say, good for morale.”

“I won’t understand the references,” she deflects.

“Well, yeah, not if you never watch the damn movies.”

It’s a fair point. And the company is surprisingly nice. Bruce, who seems to have put himself in charge of the care and feeding of their odd crew, brings snacks, these homemade potato-and-curry concoctions that Steph thinks are the best thing she’s ever tasted. When she tries to thank him, Bruce flaps his hand around and looks mildly embarrassed. Everyone else just ignores him now and digs in. There’s a pattern to the viewings, Steph quickly realizes. Clint calls every twist, and Tony grumbles but never stops him. Steph thinks he might be a little impressed. Thor is frequently perplexed by the more character-driven plots, so Tony takes it upon himself to explain the nuances, making up the most ridiculous explanations he can think of until Thor is nodding learnedly just to shut him up and Bruce is shaking with silent laughter, though she notices they all go quiet and wistful during any kissing scenes.

A few nights into the impromptu tradition, Clint convinces Natasha to join in and she follows him stiffly into the rec room, curling compactly into the corner of the couch nearest the door and seeming tensed for flight. Clint ignores the empty seat next to her and perches on the arm, blocking her escape route. She sneers at him. He glares back. Steph sits on the floor near them, stretching her legs out and leaning her back against the cushions to Natasha’s left. She twists briefly to smile a welcome. Natasha nods back, and Steph notices a flicker of nervousness cross her face. Maybe this team thing is new to her, too.

“Glad you’re joining us tonight,” Steph says, trying to project confidence and reassurance. It’s hard to tell if she succeeds -- Natasha is as perceptive as she is unreadable -- but she does earn a tiny smirk and an under-the-breath “I’m told we could all use Stark’s Cultural Indoctrination 101.” She doesn’t blink when Clint elbows her.

In place of a movie tonight, Tony’s elected to show them the premiere of the _Firefly_ series, arguing that it presages later movie greatness from the creator. The opening bombardment scenes hit a little too close to home for Steph, and she focuses on Thor’s rapt fascination and growing wrath.

“Were I present, Mjolnir would surely strike a mighty blow for--”

Among their many other talents, the Avengers are expert shushers. Thor shushes.

Bruce tenses up imperceptibly when the show introduces the monstrous space-mad Reavers, and Tony, with the nauseated expression of someone who’s just realized that he’s extremely stupid, puts an apologetic hand on his shoulder, then yanks it back like it’s on fire. Steph thinks she hears Natasha huff out a very, very quiet laugh behind her.

An hour in, after Clint’s asked her for the tenth time what something means, Natasha begins offering ridiculous translations of the Mandarin bits to the room at large.

“There’s no way that’s what they’re really saying,” Steph protests after Natasha’s deadpan “Elephant scrotums.”

“Would I lie?”

Steph pretends to think for a moment. “Yes.”

Natasha laughs a little, her smile secretive and serene as the Mona Lisa, and her limbs uncurl incrementally. Unaccountably proud of herself, Steph turns back to the screen and, a moment later, feels fingers gently ruffle her hair. She shivers. They’re gone before she can completely register the sensation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Tony’s matchmaker monologue, I used people who are part of the larger Avengers comics universe, even though I’m mostly only familiar with the movies. Let me know if including any of them was a huge gaffe. I got names from this slide show of female characters the author wants to appear in future Avengers movies. http://www.totalfilm.com/features/23-female-characters-for-the-avengers/
> 
> I did actually look at lists of the actual Mandarin swears from Firefly, but I didn’t find anything bizarre enough to work here. I do vaguely recall Nathan Fillion saying in one of the featurettes that one of them translated to something involving an elephant, so I just went with it. But if that doesn’t work for you, just go with the idea that Natasha’s making this one up. Because you know she would. :)


	3. Bonding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers watch gay movies, Steph and Natasha train together, and a date is made.

“Hey, Cap,” Clint says cheerily, falling -- literally (was he waiting for her in the _tree_?) -- into stride with her as she jogs around the local park. Coulson has warned her to expect this, generally speaking, but her adrenaline still spikes. “Mind if I ask you something?”

Taking a beat, Steph allows her heart rate to settle and her stride to return to the even, measured pace she’d set when she started out. “Go for it.”

“Natasha mentioned something to me, the other day.”

Steph almost trips over a nonexistent root. She glances over at Clint to gauge his reaction -- stupid super-spies and their stupid poker faces -- and covers with an overly casual “Hmm?”

“She’s a bit worried, you know, with, uh, all you super-types coming out of the woodwork, what her place is in the Avengers, no powers or anything.”

“Natasha is” -- _ridiculously capable, stunningly intelligent, loudly beautiful, quietly kind_ \-- “a valuable asset with unique skills. I’m sure her position is secure.” Wow, did she just verbally vomit the training manual?

“Oh absolutely, me too, but you know, it might set her mind at ease if, um, you two could maybe train together. She could practice against the super-strength, figure out some tricks. I know that would help her out a lot.” Steph knows him well enough by now that Clint’s earnestness should be tripping all her alarms, but the sudden mental image of sparring with Natasha is... distracting.

“So, you want me to--”

“The thing about Natasha, Cap, she doesn’t like to ask for things. It puts her in a... weak bargaining position. Training, you know? She started really young.” Steph winces, and the blandly affable mask Clint has plastered across his face cracks for a second, too briefly for her to decipher what’s underneath. “Plus I figure there are things you could use some help with, too, moves they don’t have in the SHIELD training databases, things Nat could bring you up to date on. So it wouldn’t be lying, uh, per se... Maybe you could start there?”

“What, just--”

“Oh, and probably don’t mention that I brought this up, Natasha would really...” Clint shudders evocatively.

“Wait, but--”

“Great! Appreciate it!” Clint punches her lightly in the bicep and strides off toward where his motorcycle is waiting at the edge of the park, pausing only briefly to smirk up at the Stark Industries security camera that is waggling its approval in his direction.

**********

Natasha and Steph start training together a few times a week. Steph worries her initial invitation is stiff and pompous and all the most obnoxious parts of Captain America, but Natasha seems to take it in stride, and she’s enthusiastic, in her subtle, contained way, about the idea of them learning from each other. It turns out it’s not even an excuse: Steph actually does have a lot to learn.

There are whole schools of combat that have been introduced since Steph was last in the field, and Natasha’s trained in all of them. She’s a surprisingly good teacher for someone whose reputation is two parts lone wolf, one part loose cannon. She’s a creative fighter, but her style is more logic than heart, and she understands the method behind everything she does even if she’s trained herself to react on instinct to just about any situation. She explains the logic of various unfamiliar fighting styles -- their strengths and weaknesses, who’s likely to use them, when to deploy them, their guiding physical and philosophical principles -- then walks Steph through the building-block moves and works her up to choreographed sequences, then actual fights. Steph isn’t quite ready yet for a mixed-method free-for-all, but she has a few new moves she can pull out for missions, and she knows a lot more about what she might be facing in the field.

Steph is tall and solid, all lean muscle and (she’s told) intimidating presence. More than stealth, or speed, or tricks, she fights with power, laying into her opponents with sheer force. Natasha is shorter, and she uses movement more than force, all concentrated energy and complicated manipulation of the laws of physics. Steph has the obvious advantage of strength, but Natasha fights clever and tricky. She’s difficult to pin down for a straightforward attack, and she knows how to assess an opponent’s weak points and then systematically exploit them. She’s also terrifically good at hiding her intentions in a fight (and reading others’ intentions), and soon she’s making a heroic effort to teach Steph how to hold a blank expression during a fight.

“That’s what the cowl’s for,” Steph objects, only half-joking. She’s in awe of Natasha’s ability to manipulate her own face. Natasha just stares, her expression revealing nothing. Steph sighs and gets back to work.

Natasha, for her part, is glad of the challenge. It’s not just Steph’s strength that requires an adjustment -- Natasha has spent a lifetime getting the better of opponents stronger than herself -- but her honor. Dirty fighters are predictable in their own way, and Steph’s sense of fair play often generates its own kind of unpredictability, catching Natasha off guard. It’s not that Steph won’t change the rules to win a fight, but that she won’t always do so in the way with the least risk to herself.

But what strikes Natasha the most is that it’s just _fun_ , learning new moves, seeing what they can do, pushing themselves to the limit. They are both so good at this, it’s exhilarating to use their talents when there are no lives on the line.

After each session, they sit on the bench for a few minutes, gulping water, high on endorphins, and trade stories of old missions where something they learned that day might have changed the game.

Like so many other things Steph has come to appreciate about her new life, it becomes a pattern.

**********

Now that they are seeing more of each other outside of missions, Steph starts coming to Natasha with her questions about the modern world. Natasha sees so much of “normal” life from an outsider’s perspective, she’s good at explaining things like smartphones and reality TV in a way that Steph can understand. Part of this may be because, like Steph, Natasha isn’t convinced that any of it is worth knowing for its own sake.

“It’s a lot of noise,” she tells Steph when Steph despairs of ever catching up to the world around her. “You don’t have to listen to all of it. You just have to know enough to make good decisions about what to tune out.” It’s an elegant assessment, and whenever Steph feels panicked she remembers this advice and the sympathetic press of Natasha’s hand on hers as she delivered it.

Natasha is always unfailingly professional -- alert, reserved, polite -- but Steph thinks there are moments when she relaxes incrementally, alludes to something from her shadowy past or jokes around in her dry, guarded manner and reveals bits of herself that usually only Clint is allowed to witness. It’s become a bit of a mission, drawing out those moments.

It’s possible that Steph, in service to this mission, overplays her naivete card, falling back on goofy flubs and sheepish questions so that Natasha can patiently correct her with a glint of sympathetic amusement in her eyes.

It’s possible that Natasha knows exactly what Steph is doing when this happens.

Regardless, it continues until it becomes something of a private joke.

They still make regular appearances at movie night, and when neither of them has been called away for a mission or a briefing, they’ve taken to grabbing sandwiches together in the kitchen beforehand. One time they enter the TV room together to find Clint and Tony chatting animatedly. Clint blinks a few times in rapid succession at their arrival, and Tony very loudly proclaims that his special arrows will be in Clint’s box in the morning. Steph narrows her eyes at both of them.

“Is that supposed to be some kind of innuendo?” Natasha asks drily, and watches with cool interest as Clint’s eyes widen and he stammers out something about Phil and paperwork and inches toward the door. Tony guffaws, but he welcomes Bruce a little too enthusiastically when he walks in a moment later.

“Uh, hey, Tony,” Bruce says, looking overwhelmed. He sets a tray full of homemade mini-pizzas down on the end-table. “Hey, Steph, Natasha.”

Stephanie nods a hello to Bruce, turns to grab a pizza bite, and then nonchalantly maneuvers its provider onto the loveseat next to Tony. In unison, both men swallow. Steph grins conspiratorially at Natasha, who rolls her eyes.

“What’s on the schedule tonight?” Steph asks, pushing Tony firmly down when he tries to bounce out of his seat. “No, no, I’ll pop it in. I need to practice how to do these things myself. I think I’m starting to figure out this DVD contraption.”

Okay, maybe _contraption_ is pushing it a little, she thinks, but Tony is too wrapped up in terror and gratitude to notice. Natasha raises an eyebrow, looking entertained and knowing and just a tiny bit impressed.

Sometimes it’s good to be evil.

**********

Tony probably thinks he’s being subtle, slipping some gay classics into the mix of cerebral sci-fi, ridiculous action, and incomprehensible comedy that quickly dominates Ye Olde Official Non-Optional And We Mean It Avengers Movie Night (as jointly christened by Thor and Tony). After all, everyone knows that Clint is completely gone for Phil. Thor may be a bosoms-only kind of demigod, but he finds the human practice of defining relationships by the gender of those involved a bit confusing -- it’s all the same thing to him, give or take some inheritance logistics -- and he’s absorbed in anything Tony puts on, though given options he’ll always choose something with siblings (“The melancholy it draws forth is a sweet healing,” he says, and no-one knows what to say, but Bruce pats his arm and hands him a chocolate cupcake, because chocolate is for when words fail, and there’s a lot of chocolate around the Avengers mansion). And Steph is certain she’s not the only one who knows Tony’s pining for Bruce, no matter how paradoxically private he keeps his personal life (the real one, not the crap in the tabloids). So maybe most of the others believe that this is just the next phase of Tony’s Cultural Education Project for the Temporally Displaced and Socially Maladjusted, but Steph suspects there’s some hidden plan to it all that relates to her.

It’s Tony though. His intentions are good, his methods are underhanded, and it’s best to just sit back and enjoy the show until it all sorts itself out, no thanks to him.

Steph doesn’t really understand _The Broken Hearts Club_ , but she likes _Saving Face_ ; she gets the family stuff, and the press of expectations. _If These Walls Could Talk II_ makes her tear up a little, and Natasha, who’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, her spine ruler-straight, leans imperceptibly into Steph’s knee when Vanessa Redgrave loses her home.

Her favorite movie night is when Tony shows them _D.E.B.S._ and Natasha plants herself on the couch next to Steph and whispers indignantly in her ear about all the things the movie gets wrong about spies.

“To begin,” she says, her breath stirring the curl of hair behind Steph’s ear, “I would never wear a Catholic schoolgirl skirt. That’s just... tacky.”

Steph means to snort, but she thinks it comes out closer to a giggle. Her ear tingles. Natasha leans back into the cushions, looking pleased.

**********

"Thanks for that," Steph says, reaching a hand down to help Natasha up, though she knows Natasha could flip herself up to her feet, hands-free, in less than a second if she wanted to. It’s a Tuesday morning and Steph has just finished their latest sparring session with a decisive victory, one of the few she’s won against Natasha in weeks.

Natasha takes the hand and stands fluidly, a hair closer to Steph than is strictly friendly, and lets her hand linger a second too long. An entire sparring session didn't leave Steph the least bit short of breath, but she feels a hitch in her breathing now, completely beyond her control. Natasha's mouth twitches, and her eyes warm.

"So," Natasha says, stepping back. "Hmm. I wished to ask you… That is, there is a restaurant that Clint has recommended to me, something he called "nostalgia kitsch, but tasty," that I believe you may enjoy. In Brooklyn, in fact. He assures me that the owner is discreet. I wondered if you might wish to, er, ‘check it out.’ With me. On Friday? I, ah. Well." And then she's silent and still, looking perfectly composed and utterly disinterested unless you happen to notice the way her eyes are darting nervously from corner to corner, instinctively mapping escape routes.

Steph's an observant team leader. She notices.

She always notices Natasha.

But -- "You mean a date?" Steph blurts, and promptly blushes, deeply and uncontrollably, like she hasn't done since she was all of fourteen and got tongue-tied around her best friend. She can feel mortification and hope and pure adrenaline chasing themselves across her face as she struggles to regain some kind of equilibrium.

"Yes," Natasha says, too loudly. "A date. Um. Yes. Date. Hmm." Natasha is never this... verbose.

Steph's smile feels like she’s waking up from the ice all over again, scared and euphoric and disoriented and powerfully alive.

"Yes," she says, and impulsively grabs Natasha's hand back and pulls her closer for a sweaty, awkward hug that Natasha obviously has no clue how to react to. "It's a date. I'd like that. A lot. Um. Thank you?"

Natasha just smiles, her composure slipping back in place, and shakes her head a little, looking dazedly amused. "No thanks necessary, Cap."

"Steph," Steph corrects her.

"Steph," Natasha repeats. Her smile widens and warms. "See you Friday. Well, before that, probably. But Friday for the date. Um, seven. We can meet here. In the mansion, I mean. I'll take care of everything."

"Seven," Steph says. "Friday. Ah, what should I... wear?"

Natasha's eyes sweep her body so quickly Steph thinks she may have imagined it, but the flush of pleasure that sweeps her body in their wake is real enough. "Whatever you want," Natasha says.


	4. Advice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Clint give advice. Only one of them is any good at it.

Of course, Steph can't really just wear whatever she wants, and what do people even wear on dates these days, and what do people talk about on dates, and what is Natasha expecting, and what does Natasha want, and are the rules different when it’s two women on a date, and _what the fucking HELL is nostalgia kitsch anyway??_

Ok. She’s spiraling. Name the problem. Solve the problem. Small steps. That’s the mantra Bucky always used to use.

So.

The problem is she has no fucking clue what she’s doing.

No. Smaller.

The problem is that, while she is very well equipped to deal with any number of absurd and challenging situations, a date is not one of them.

No. Objectively speaking, this is one of the least dire things she has ever faced. It is, in fact, the opposite of dire. She understands the psychology of finding the good things scarier than the bad, but she refuses to succumb to it. She likes Natasha. Natasha, by all demonstrable measures, likes her. The correct response here is excitement. With, yes, a healthy dose of nervousness.

So. Name the problem: The problem is she might do/say/wear something stupid in front of the smartest person she knows.

Solve the problem: Logically, if she is going to say or do something stupid, she already has, and here they still are, so... can it, Rogers. Only the last is solvable. It will, however, require an outside perspective.

If nothing else, Tony Stark knows how to present an image. Hopefully he can be persuaded to minimize his... Tony-ness.

**********

Tony Stark gives bad advice. Steph isn’t sure why she’s surprised. After all, he’s dressed like an Albert Einstein impersonator and surrounded by robots he’s programmed to be friends. _Sarcastic_ friends, at that.

“A date with the Black Widow, damn, Cap, moving on up. Um, you know what Black Widow means, right? You sure you’re ready for this?”

“Tony, all I need to know is what people wear for these kinds of things. The restaurant is called--”

“Oh, oh, fashion advice,” Tony says, his eyes lighting up. “Dress to impress, Cap. You definitely want to go slinky, maybe some bling...”

“No, I just--”

“...and I have some product you can use...”

“Product of...?”

“...and you should get some Louboutins or maybe a nice Givenchy pair, and I can overnight you something from Bluefly, and--”

“Tony, _I do not know what these words mean_.” Steph is trying very hard not to grind her teeth. It’s mostly working. She has excellent self-control. She pulls at her hair instead. “Ok. Let’s try this another way. What would you wear if Bruce asked you out?”

Tony’s eyes go comically large. “Bruce... ask... hehehe -- NO -- I mean... what? Why? Do you think... did he... GAH! That is, I mean--”

“You know, Tony, it’s possible that I have come to the wrong place for advice.”

Tony scrubs a hand over his mouth, leaving streaks of oil in his mustache. He looks... disappointed?

“Yeah, Cap, even I have to say, when you’re coming to Tony Stark for advice, even about fashion, you have sunk pretty low.”

Steph feels a tiny bit guilty. “It’s not _that_ , it’s just that... well, maybe our dating styles are a bit... different?”

“Is that a diplomatic way of saying you don’t date and all and I put out on the first date?”

“Um. Maybe. Look, I’m just asking, what do people expect now?”

“Everything. Nothing. People are stupid, you shouldn’t listen to them.”

Steph closes her eyes a moment. When she opens then, everything is exactly the same. Damn. “Well, what would _Natasha_ expect?”

“Hey, you know her better than I do. Whatever it is, I promise it’s nothing resembling normal. Have you _seen_ her? Honestly, Cap, have you seen all of us? What the hell kind of advice would you give someone going on a date with _any_ of us? Seriously, what would you say? No sudden movements or you might get shot with an exploding arrow? Wear a lightning-proof vest? It’s bad form to attach campy refrigerator magnets to your lover’s glowing blue heart?”

“Ok, yes, but -- Wait, did someone actually do that?”

“And I thought being kidnapped by terrorists was the scariest thing to wake up to.”

“Huh.” Steph has to pause for a moment to digest that mental image. “Ok, I’m crazy, you’re crazy, we’re all crazy here, but can we get back on track? Scale it down. Natasha doesn’t expect normal, but she expects... a little experience, right? Confidence? I just... don’t want to look too old-fashioned, or say the wrong thing, or--”

“Oooh! Wait, wait, wait!” Tony suddenly bounces to his feet and starts pacing. “Idea! Eureka! Ha, I always wanted to say eureka. Well, say it where someone could hear. He. But, lightbulb! You give _me_ advice. And then, you know, take it.”

“Um...”

“No, no, hear me out, I’m a genius! Well, yes, literally, in fact, but this, this is genius right here. This is my best genius yet! So, Cap, you tell me what to... wear... and do and stuff. I mean, we should all be more like you, right? At least, I know I should.” Steph thinks she can almost follow this. At least she could if Tony wasn’t making her dizzy with his rapid zigzags around the lab.

“Ok, see, I’m going on a date with Bruce. Holy shit, I said that aloud. Well, I mean, I’m not actually, I just... I mean, you brought it up, so just as, you know, a _totally random_ example of a hypothetical date I might be nervous about because, because, because rage monster! Yes! Love that rage monster. I mean, not LOVE love, I mean, I mean, oh god, please stop me.”

Steph takes a moment to let the glorious chaos of Tony’s brain sink in as Tony jitters to a halt, drapes his upper body across the lab table, and lets his head sink gently into a pile of miniature mechanical parts made of improbable materials. Faint, panicked wheezing comes from his buried face. Apparently, scraps of rare metal alloys are Tony’s version of a comfort blanket.

“So what you’re saying is,” she translates, absently patting his shoulder, “I should tell you what to do on your completely hypothetical first date with...” Tony squeaks pathetically. “...someone.”

“Yes.”

“Someone that you like,” Steph can’t resist needling.

Tony groans.

“Because I am better at advice.”

“My god, yes.”

“And then I should do what I tell you to do.”

“Got it in one.”

“That... actually makes sense, Tony.”

“I told you I was a genius,” he says, his voice muffled.

“This is not exactly your most convincing moment.”

“Wear blue.”

“What?”

“That is all I really have to offer you on the fashion front. Wear blue. Brings out your eyes. And nice pants. Skirts are not required. Unless you want to. But no cargos.”

“Thanks, Tony.”

Tony takes a deep, slow breath, pulls himself gingerly upright, and grins crookedly at her. There are a few pieces of metal stuck to his forehead, and little lug-nut-shaped indentations all over his face.

“Now tell me how to rock my mystery date, Cap. I promise to let you know if you say anything that just screams ‘I am a defrosted national relic with intimacy issues whose sense of fun is trapped with my social skills in a secret government facility guarded by three-headed alien-snake-god thingies,’ cause, you know, that’s probably not the message you’re going for.”

“Tony.”

“Capsicle.”

“Please don’t make me punch you again.”

“Yep, you and Natasha are gonna do fine.”

**********

“Clint,” Natasha says plaintively. She’s been watching him shoot exploding bulls-eyes for twenty minutes in silence. Clint has to admit, explode-y things are the best therapy.

“Friday?” Clint asks, letting another one loose. She nods, looking suspicious. “Tony may have mentioned something,” he says, trying for offhanded breeziness. She looks more suspicious, then shrugs.

“Clint,” she says again, and he carefully lays the bow down on the bench beside him.

“You’ve got me.”

“She asked me what to wear.”

“And?”

“ _I_ don’t know what to wear.”

“And?”

“Clint!”

He grins. This is a side of Natasha he rarely sees anymore, and it brings him back to their early years together. Deadly teenage assassins who can kill you with a spork are still, well, teenagers. He feels unsettlingly paternal. “Look, Natasha, she likes you. I see her watching you.”

“Yes, but what does she _see_?”

Clint rolls his eyes and is a little concerned when Natasha doesn’t immediately injure him for doing so. “That is some crazy circular mumbo jumbo female bullshit.” He smirks with relief when Natasha punches his shoulder, hard. “Um, ow. She sees _you_. You don’t have to prove anything here, and you can play it close to the chest without playing a role. Just wear something nice. Something... comfortable. Trust me, this is easy.”

“It’s... really not.” Her gaze lengthens to survey the distant wreckage of the targets, quietly sizzling and smoking.

“Hey,” Clint says firmly, stepping into her line of vision. “It is. This is Captain America. Kind. Honorable. Fellow woman in a man’s world. Oh, and total freaking newbie to all things romance. You could wrap her around your little finger without even thinking about it.”

“But that is the problem.” Natasha hesitates, trying to find the right words. “How do I be... not that? Not that person? Not... managing the situation. Just me?”

“Well, for starters, I don’t think Captain America is really one for being managed.”

“Yes, but--”

“Natasha,” Clint says, as firmly and as seriously as he can.

“Yes?”

“Is this something that will make you happy?”

“Yes, but--”

“And do you trust her to be basically a good person whose only motive in this whole date thing is getting to know you and having a nice time?”

Natasha sighs. “If I do not, then the endeavor is hopeless.”

Clint lets that pass. Trust is tricky for both of them, and admitting it is even harder. It’s enough that she’s getting there. “And remind me why you asked her out?”

A smile tugs at her lips. “Well, she’s hot.”

“No comment.”

“I like her. She’s... calming. But interesting. There are... layers.”

“Ok. So focus on that. Get to know her more. Ask her about the things that confuse you. Talk about her art, or Brooklyn back in the day, or anything that isn’t about saving the world and being a big damn hero.”

“Hmm.”

“Natasha?”

“Yes?”

“Trust me. This is good. You’ve got this.”

“Hmph,” says Natasha, and stalks away.

**********

Tony’s in the process of upgrading Bruce’s network interface to include direct audio links to a playlist of mellow but complex instrumental music with contrapuntal embellishments to stimulate as well as soothe the mind (Tony’s genius shines particularly bright when it comes to semi-anonymous present-giving) when his phone pings. He flips it open.

_It’s happening. She asked me what to wear._

_NATASHA asked YOU what to wear?!_ Tony types, then thinks better of it -- Clint can be a delicate flower sometimes -- and deletes the message without sending. _Good on this end, too_ , he replies. The fact that he had a minor meltdown and then made Steph give _him_ advice, well that was... all just part of the plan. The, er, new plan. Because he’s a strategic genius.

They should come up with some code names, he thinks. Captain Clueless. Iron Cupid. And a secret file or two wouldn’t be a bad idea.

His phone pings again.

_Is there an emoticon for fist-bumping?_

There is not, Tony thinks, but there really, really should be.

 _I’m on it_ , he writes back.

Who knew teamwork could be so awesome? They may have to amend his personality profile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know LITERALLY NOTHING about designer shoes. Seriously, I Googled “women’s designer shoes” to come up with the names Tony throws at Steph. So if I accidentally have her wearing purses on her feet or something, please do let me know. :)
> 
> Also, yes, there is a tiny little Firefly shout-out. What can I say, I have a problem. There's also an Alice in Wonderland shout-out, just because.


	5. First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First dates are, well, nothing they were ever trained for.

In the end, they both show up looking a little like they’re on job interviews: nice but armored, hints of nerves betrayed by over-ironed fabric and too-shiny shoes, trying for an impossible balance between polish and self.

If she had any experience with them whatsoever, Steph thinks, she would probably hate first dates with a passion. Her heart feels like it’s pounding at double-speed when Natasha knocks briskly on her door.

Natasha isn’t wearing makeup, and there’s a smattering of freckles across her nose that reminds Steph that, no matter how unshakeable Nat’s composure is, she’s really only a couple years older than Steph. Her hair is pulled back, a more severe and vulnerable look than the sexy waves she usually favors, and Steph likes how it bares her face. She has on heels (though it still doesn’t bring her up to Steph’s height in flats) and a relatively modest dark green V-neck dress that’s unlike anything Steph’s ever seen her wear. Upon closer inspection, it definitely has some nifty pleating that’s strategically placed to allow full mobility in the event of a fight, and the faint outline of a thigh holster is apparent when Natasha steps forward into the room. Steph tries to remember the last time she saw Natasha wearing color. She thinks it was for an undercover mission.

Steph has gone simple: black pants, a pale blue shirt that drapes gently over her curves but doesn’t cling, a small pendant necklace (her mother’s) that rests in the groove of her collarbone, and hair she’s left soft instead of slicking it back for battle.

They look at each other for a minute before Natasha smiles and inclines her head. She looks almost... shy. “It’s walking distance,” she says.

“It’s a nice night,” Steph answers in tacit agreement.

“Do you need to bring a coat?” Natasha gestures awkwardly at the sweater she’s draped over her arm in anticipation of a cool walk home.

“I’m fine,” Steph says. “I run warm.”

There’s a moment of hesitation -- do they hold hands? should Steph offer her arm or hold the door or something? -- and then they both exit the room, maintaining a stiff distance, wary of observers, as they make their way out of the Mansion.

***********

The restaurant is called Nuovi-Nuovi York and it’s decorated like people in the 1970s tried to recreate the 1950s with 1990s paraphernalia. Steph looks slightly confused and a little homesick, and Natasha wishes she had checked this out beforehand rather than trusting Clint’s recommendation. The food had better be _excellent_.

The silence is... awkward. Not the companionable sharing of space they’re used to after training. Now that they’re alone, and without the structure of training, everything feels high-pressure and contrived. Natasha steals glances at Steph in between studying the menu, though she’d chosen her meal when she chose the restaurant; Steph looks buzzed and trapped, like she’s in the field without her uniform. She’s blinking rapidly, staring at the menu like she needs to commit it to memory.

Natasha can think of a dozen slick, practiced conversation starters, but none of them are genuine. They all come ready-made from the people skills file in her head -- gaining trust, creating the illusion of intimacy, affecting interest -- and this is exactly what she wants to leave behind. So she’s quiet, worrying surreptitiously at her inner lip, trying to sort through all the pre-programmed noise in her head to find the thing she wants to say that is real, but not... too real. She doesn’t think she’s ready for that yet.

They exchange some stilted pleasantries about the... odd... contents of the menu, and then make their orders when the waitress comes over with bread and a carafe of ice water.

The silence resumes. Natasha tears a piece of bread into bite-size pieces on her plate and tries to shuffle through the noise in her head for a way to make this... work. Clint was wrong. She does not “have” this.

“So how did you end up with SHIELD?” Steph finally asks, speaking a bit more rapidly than her normal cadence, and Natasha refocuses outward. It would not have been her first choice for a question, but Steph looks anxious, verging on desperate, so Natasha tries to smile reassuringly and allows a hint of her surprise at the question to show through.

“Stark hasn’t shown you the file?”

“I would never--” Steph looks terribly earnest. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to... those are _yours_.”

“SHIELD’s, really,” Natasha says absently. She’s long since gotten used to the idea that all the ugly details of her past are plastered in ones and zeros across the screens of everyone she’ll ever work know. It doesn’t matter. They don’t know the important parts of her.

Steph looks horrified. “So, are my...? I thought those were classified!”

“SHIELD has what you would perhaps call boundary issues,” Natasha says, allowing some sympathy to creep into her tone. “It’s not... It’s hard for spies to trust each other without that information. It’s classified, but most of us have our own ways around it. It’s... an understanding.”

“Does that mean you’ve seen mine?”

“Yes,” says Natasha, and she absolutely refuses to feel guilty. Steph is silent. Natasha keeps her eyes on her empty bread plate -- looking at Steph’s transparent face seems too close to an invasion of her privacy at this moment -- and continues, “It is... necessary, for me. To know as much as possible about the people I work with. Trust is... an issue.”

“Ok,” Steph says slowly. “I don’t love that, but I can understand it.”

“How much _do_ you know about my background?” Natasha supposes they have to address this at some point; better now than later, when she’s even more invested.

“That you were a Russian spy, a child spy, and you defected to us after Clint made contact during an assassination.”

“During _my_ assassination. I was trained very young. There were hundreds of kills on my record. Most of them your people. Americans, SHIELD. I was fourteen. No-one knew that. Clint broke orders, brought me back. But there was... They spent years deprogramming me. Even now, few trust my allegiance. Had Clint not come back from Loki’s enslavement, it is likely I would no longer be an Avenger. The risk is considered too great.” Natasha is watching Steph very carefully, like one of them is about to bolt and she’s deciding who it will be. Steph’s hands are on the table, where Natasha can see them, like surrender.

“I would have fought for you to stay.” Steph’s voice is quiet. She looks a little sick, but also sad.

“Yes. You are very trusting.” She sees Steph’s hands clench on the edge of the table, her knuckles whitening. “I apologize, this is a poor topic for conversation. I only meant...” She shakes her head slightly. She has absolutely no idea what her face is doing at this moment. “Stephanie, I like you a great deal. Your friendship alone has been... I know we are quite different, and much of my past is... problematic. I simply wished to... alert you.”

“I am trusting because you deserve my trust,” Steph says fiercely.

“That is not...” Natasha fights the urge to apologize. This is not the date she wanted to have. “Perhaps, if we... let me change the subject, all right? Tell me about Brooklyn, where you grew up.” Her transition is atrocious. She is making a mess of this. Steph deserves better. What was Clint _thinking_ , sending her into this? She can’t find the ground between flayed open and false. This all seemed so cruelly possible when they were at home, at the Mansion, sparring and joking and longing. Natasha holds herself preternaturally still and blanks her face, hoping Steph can’t read her and at the same time wishing she would just see clear through to the heart of her and save Natasha the work of cutting herself open.

The waitress arrives with their food, and Steph smiles politely up at her in thanks. They both stare at their dinners. Natasha’s shepherd’s pie looks delicious. She doubts she can stomach a bite. The silence enveloping their table is deafening.

“This isn’t really... I haven’t done this before,” Steph blurts.

“No?” Natasha asks, trying to pull herself back together. That wasn’t in SHIELD’s files. She’d suspected, but she has a policy of never running with assumptions. “Not with men, either?”

Steph smiles a little helplessly. “It was a different time, for everything, in every way. With men, first I was a kid, and then all of a sudden I was this super-soldier who was stronger than them... There were a few dates but it was only ever about them proving themselves, and I could tell... and then all the press... But really it was simpler to have that road cut off. I always knew what I wanted, but there was never a way... Before the serum, my world was so small, and after, everyone knew my face. Everyone was watching, with so much pinned on me. It was... not safe. And I knew I had no talent for secrets.”

This is a peace offering, Natasha recognizes. Natasha uncovered something of hers, and now Steph is fumbling through a proportional reveal. They’ll both be lucky to be in one piece by the time this meal ends.

“Not even Peggy?” Natasha asks, then kicks herself for prying in further than Steph had indicated she wanted to go.

“Peggy knew,” Steph says slowly. “I didn’t realize it until the very end, before that last mission that went all to hell. I never really knew who _she_ was, what she wanted for herself, but she was... kind.” She grimaces. “She told me I needed to learn how to hide myself more, that they would never let me be who I was and the best thing I could do was store it away so they couldn’t steal it from me. I tried, but I wasn’t very good at that. Bucky covered for me, some. Though that got... complicated, too. I think he thought, if he just waited long enough...” She trails off, her eyes unfocused.

“Can I ask you something?” Natasha is uncharacteristically tentative as she breaks into Steph’s thoughts. Steph’s eyes snap back to hers, a little anxious, but she nods. “How could you -- how _can_ you -- be so sure about fighting for America when you know America was -- is -- so wrong about you?”

Steph smiles, shy and a little sheepish. “This -- ok, I know this sounds cheesy -- but I feel like, it’s the people, it’s all the people. We’re all sharing this home, this country, this world. And if I can make people safe, maybe they’ll be kinder to each other, if they aren’t so scared all the time. The title, the status... lets me do that. I can fight for _my_ America, not theirs.”

“Hmm,” Natasha says noncommittally.

Steph’s smile turns wry. “But if you’re asking if I ever want to walk into Congress and knock heads together until they get their brains out of their asses, then the answer is a definite yes.”

Natasha huffs out a laugh, surprised she has some humor left in her at this stage of the conversation. Steph’s eyes flick to her mouth briefly before returning to her eyes, and the twist of irony in her expression melts into sincerity.

“Look, I’m not stupid. I know what Tony’s seen, why he stopped making weapons. I know what we did in the years I was asleep, and what we did before that, too. I know when I signed up for all this I didn’t really get all the complicated bits, the ways I would be... culpable in some of what I hate. I still thought you could just go over and beat on the bad guys until you won, and everything would get better, and I learned pretty fast that it didn’t work like that. But I believed in Howard, and I believe in SHIELD, and I believe in you.” Steph’s blush spreads so fast and strong, Natasha almost expects to feel the heat from across the table. “Er, the Avengers, I mean. I mean, well, and also in you. That is... oh, hell.” She takes a deliberately large bit of her cornflake chicken and conspicuously _does not look at Natasha_.

“I like your face,” Natasha says without any forethought. Steph chokes a little, then swallows very carefully.

“Um. I like yours, too.”

“I mean, it’s very open. And beautiful, obviously, but... I like watching you think. Surprising you and then seeing you be surprised.” She doesn’t think as she talks, just lets the words tumble out. It’s easier than she might have expected.

Steph looks a little overwhelmed, then self-conscious, as if she’s remembering how well Natasha can read people.

“And, um this is new for me, too,” Natasha admits, riding the momentum. Something about Steph makes her want to offer up the things she normally hides under layers of polish and diversion, no matter how hard it is. This part is easier, maybe, than her previous confession, because she knows that Steph will understand this. (On the other hand, _Steph will understand this_ , and Natasha has always found comfort in being an enigma.) “Not the dating, or the sex, but the... doing those things without any mission, just because... I want to.” She pauses. “Because I want you.” She tries to smile, but she feels horribly exposed. This thing where she says what she means, it is not something she does.

Steph reaches across the table and grabs her hand, startling her.

“Thanks for telling me that,” Steph says, “that really... Thanks.” Natasha inclines her head. When she forces her hand to relax in Steph’s, it feels nice. Warm. Safe. “Listen,” Steph adds, “I think we should maybe... well, have some ground rules.” Natasha’s smile becomes less strained, because for all that Steph can confuse and intrigue and surprise her, this is one thing that is just so very _her_ , this habit of coaxing the world into safe patterns that she can understand, rules that are fair and just and put everyone on the same page.

“Like?” Natasha prompts.

“Like, no pressure, no expectations, no judgment. This should be easy, right? Or at least we shouldn’t be the ones to make it harder. We only do what we’re sure we want. Friends first, always, plus... whatever else as it happens. If you don’t want to tell me something, you don’t lie, you just don’t talk. I won’t push. And, you know, vice versa.” Steph ducks her head a little, and Natasha wonders if she isn’t reassuring both of them equally. Steph is probably the only person in the world outside of Clint who thinks Natasha might even need reassuring.

“I -- yes,” Natasha says, charmed, and then this new experiment she’s trying in emulating Steph’s terrifying honesty prompts her to add, “I don’t always know what I want.”

Steph laughs a little. “Well, me either, to tell you the truth. Maybe we can figure it out together. You know what you _don’t_ want, right?”

“Yes,” Natasha says, her expression darkening slightly. “I have a lot more... experience... on that side of the coin.”

Steph squeezes her hand lightly and lets it go, turning her attention back to her food, and this time, finally, it’s not awkward. “Close enough,” she says, and tucks in.


	6. First Date, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the date goes better.

The rest of the evening is relaxed.

They find their rhythm again -- the one from sparring, from movie nights, from the quiet little friendship they’d carved out -- and fall into it, tripping from conversation to silence and back again with ease. Steph still finds it painful to talk about the lost Brooklyn of her childhood -- not because it was a good place per se, but because it is familiar and gone like too much else. She shares this with Natasha, who nods and proceeds to regale her with wonderfully vivid stories of her favorite places around the world: Tokyo, Vancouver, Sydney, Prague.

( _Not_ Budapest; she’s very clear on that point.)

Outside of her war travels, Steph realizes, she’s seen very little of the world. “I’d love to see Florence,” she says, enchanted by Natasha’s description of wine and castles and rolling expanses of green and sky.

“I’d love to show it to you,” Natasha says, her eyes warm.

A waiter discreetly removes their empty dinner plates.

“Dessert?” Natasha asks, and Steph nods. She doesn’t want to break the spell of this restaurant, this table, this woman. They order -- creme brulee for Steph (Natasha’s suggestion), flourless dark chocolate cake for Natasha, and herbal tea to share -- and pick up the thread of conversation without missing a beat.

Tony’s movie choices are fruitful fodder for debate. Steph half-seriously defends the egregiously unrealistic action movies he seems to favor, arguing that they work on a metaphorical level.

“It’s about the characters,” she says, “what they go through to save the people they love, what they will sacrifice, how long they will persevere. And the idea that victory can be gained at the last moment, when hope seems lost. It’s not realistic, but it is... comforting. To imagine a world in which that is not only possible, but probably.”

Natasha is indulgent but skeptical. She could care less about the characters, but is fascinated by the blatant impossibilities the American public will swallow in the name of entertainment, explaining that she’s constructed a taxonomy of movie missteps that divides them into errors of physics, biology, strategy, etymology, and entomology (“You wouldn’t think that would require its own category, but...”), and then subdivides each field into subfields related to the severity and narrative importance of the error. There’s a complicated mathematical formula to it all that Natasha details with disarming earnestness. Steph is starting to understand that Natasha is actually a very funny person, it’s just that everyone is too busy being terrified of her to realize it. It makes sense, she supposes. No-one can live Natasha’s life and remain marginally sane without having a deep and twisted sense of humor.

“Does anyone else know you’re a nerd?” Steph teases.

“Only Coulson,” Natasha says, straight-faced. “It’s how I convinced him I wasn’t going to kill him in his sleep.”

“Oh?”

“We shared tales of collecting Captain America trading cards.”

Steph laughs aloud, and then it occurs to her with a flash of horror that Natasha might be not be joking. “No. You’re pulling my leg.”

“Am I?” Natasha’s eyes dance.

“You have to be.”

“My stories are more exciting than his. Do you know how hard it is for a thirteen-year-old girl to collect Captain America cards in Communist Russia?”

“You’re bluffing.”

Natasha shrugs elaborately. “Ask Phil about it sometime.”

“No matter what his answer is, I’m pretty sure that conversation would end in a very scary place.”

“Touche.” They smile at each other.

Steph licks the last of the creme brulee off her spoon, savoring the taste, and their eyes meet across the table. Steph is suddenly self-conscious. Everything feels so natural with Natasha, it’s easy to forget how out of her depth she is. Whatever Natasha reads in her face makes her expression soften from hunger to affection.

“It was never about getting them,” Natasha says suddenly, after a beat of penetrating silence, “it was about knowing they were out there. Like... a ritual I had, to keep up hope, even when I didn’t know hope was what I was looking for.”

“What?”

“The cards,” Natasha says. “Your cards.”

The journey, not the destination. Steph gets it. “Right,” she says. And it’s easy again.

***********

By the time they leave the restaurant, it’s almost closing. There is some brief awkwardness when they both reach for the check, but it’s averted when the waiter coughs politely and explains that it was already covered by a third party, and Steph and Natasha share a moment of telepathic _What is Stark up to?_ connection.

Steph still feels a bit wobbly-kneed, but in a good way now. The night air is cool and crisp, and the hint of midnight fog is tinged with the multicolored glow from streetlights and storefronts and the thousand other bright things that prevent New York from ever being truly dark. Now that she’s part of it, out in the air, it feels less overwhelming, more energizing. Other couples weave their way up and down the streets, murmuring, laughing, sometimes arguing. It’s all white noise. Steph feels like she and Natasha are the only two people in the entire city.

She puts an arm around Natasha’s shoulders, bumps their hips lightly together as they walk, then hesitates as Natasha stiffens.

“No?” Steph asks. Natasha meets her gaze uncomfortably, and then her eyes flick nervously away. Steph retrieves her arm, letting it slip into her pocket, and tries not to take it personally when Natasha visibly relaxes.

“I’m sorry.” Natasha looks frustrated. “I just... I like to be able to maneuver when I’m outside. That... I know it should feel nice, I know we’re not on the job, but it limits motion, response time... I can’t.”

“Hey, no should. No sorry. It’s, um, against our rules.” Steph feels kind of stodgy saying that, but Natasha reaches over to briefly squeeze her forearm in thanks.

“So, Tony and Clint,” Steph says, and just like that, they’re back in sync. They’re even walking in unison, Steph notes with amusement. Natasha may be shorter, but she moves through the world like she always has to reach her destination a split-second before it expects her.

“Yes.” Natasha infuses the single word with a wealth of dire meaning.

“I’m not imagining it?”

“No.”

“How much trouble do you think they can get into together?”

“Apocalyptic on a level the world cannot yet comprehend. I include the Chitauri in this assessment. But probably less so if we don’t force them to become any sneakier.”

“Right.” They take a moment to grin conspiratorially at each other. “Non-stealthy stealth it is.”

The mansion is quiet and dim as they enter.

“Do you really think everyone is asleep?” Steph whispers.

Natasha rolls her eyes. “I think Clint saw us coming from the roof and he and Tony cleared everyone out on pain of death so we could say good night in peace.”

“Huh.” Steph reaches for Natasha’s hand, enjoying its smoothness and how, after a split-second of involuntary tension ripples through Natasha’s body at the contact, she relaxes into Steph’s light, undemanding grip. “Well, in that case, shall I walk you to your door?”

The hallway to Natasha’s room is garishly bright after the soothing half-light of the entryway, and Steph’s nerves punch into gear again, anticipation making her breathless.

They linger at Natasha’s doorway. She turns to face Natasha and, in awe at her own daring, draws her slowly in for a sweet, soft kiss. Natasha tilts her head into the kiss as Steph’s hand strokes lightly up her arm to cup her face, and they both sigh. Natasha smiles a secret little smile, her eyes meeting Steph’s ( _so close_ ), and Steph feels her heart stutter.

Steph loses track of how long they trade these soft, slow kisses. Her pulse is pounding -- she can hear it in her ears, along with Natasha’s low, wordless murmurs -- and each breath keeps catching in her chest, lingering in her throat before Natasha steals it. It feels like she’s in a dream, weightless and fevered, all sensation concentrated in a few points of contact: lips and fingertips, the palm of her hand warm against Natasha’s cool cheek, a wisp of Natasha’s hair brushing her knuckle, the tickle of Natasha’s breath unsteady against her cheek when she pulls back just an inch, the electricity of Natasha’s body almost-but-not-quite pressed against her own.

 _Oh_ , she thinks, _here is home. Not lost after all._ But there’s no time to interrogate that thought.

Natasha leans in again for another slow, sweet taste of still-smiling lips, and then abruptly pulls some sort of assassin move Steph can’t track so that she is pressed firmly against the wall, gasping, while Natasha deepens the kiss. Steph dives in for all she’s worth, dizzy and elated, trying to imitate whatever Natasha’s doing with her mouth and hoping it feels as good on Natasha’s end as it does on hers. Natasha picks up on the mirroring, because of course she does, and uses it in ways that are instructive and shivery and make Steph _so grateful_ that this is her second kiss and her first date and and even though she has no clue what she’s doing Natasha is going to make it easy with her indefinable magic way of being that allows Steph to feel like she is just exactly who and where and what she was meant to be all along.

Steph wraps an arm lightly around Natasha’s waist, and when Natasha nods slightly against her mouth, tightens it and moves her other hand to the nape of her neck, feeling a thrum of accomplishment sweep through her when Natasha’s whole body goes pliant against hers. Every nerve ending is dancing. Natasha’s kisses are insistent and tender and honest and just so heartbreaking _good_ that Steph finally forgets to think about what she’s doing and just gives her whole self over to them. Natasha’s hands are cradling her face, fingertips tracing her cheekbones and jaw, and there are butterflies in her stomach and her knees and her chest and she never wants _right here right now_ to end.

“Is that, um, what you like?” Steph asks, lightheaded, when Natasha eventually breaks the kiss, both of them breathing unevenly.

“Um,” Natasha says a little unsteadily. “Sometimes? Yes?” She meets Steph’s eyes. “Wow. I just... wow, Steph. We are really... wow.”

“That’s not... usual?” Steph asks. She kind of knows the answer, but she want to hear it anyway.

“Emphatically no,” Natasha says, her dazed, affectionate tone making it a gentle little in-joke while her fingers continue to move lightly over Steph’s face like she can’t get enough of touching her.

Steph grins, part mischief, part shyness, and then flips them so that it’s Natasha’s turn to be pressed against the wall. “Ok?” she whispers, remembering their walk home. In answer, Natasha buries her hand in Steph’s hair and stretches up for another kiss, and Steph leans into her, presses their bodies carefully together and returns the kiss with all the joy and care and pent-up longing that is coursing through her body so strongly it feels like her emotions have to be physically tangible, like they are seconds away from shooting out of her pores and lighting up the whole room. She feels Natasha sag a little as her knees buckle, and it’s the easiest and most natural thing in the world to hold her up, hold her in place, all her strength contained and focused as the world narrows to just the two of them. She imagines what it will be like in bed, wrestling each other for dominance, playful and sweet and intense, and shudders a little as she instinctively takes control of the kiss, takes it deeper and hotter, before finally pulling back with gentle nip.

“I thought you said you were new to this,” Natasha jokes unsteadily.

“I have an above-average learning curve and a well-honed imagination,” Steph quips back, one finger lightly tracing Natasha’s exposed collarbone. Natasha inhales sharply, and they stare at each other, frozen, until Steph swallows and rests her forehead against Natasha’s, her hands making tiny, soothing circles on Natasha’s shoulders. After a moment, Natasha sighs and leans into the embrace, resting there as they breathe each other in. Whatever soap she uses has faintly spicy overtones, Steph notices. She likes it.

Finally Natasha takes a deep breath and sidesteps slightly, her hand moving to the doorknob behind her, and Steph pulls back to give her room to maneuver, uncertain what comes next.

Natasha’s wide, blinding smile is the most open expression Steph’s ever seen on her face. Hand still on the knob, she leans in for a quick one-armed hug, presses a whisper of a kiss to Steph’s cheek, then another to the corner of her mouth, and slips backward into her room with a soft “Goodnight.” The door closes gently behind her.

Steph sags against it for a moment, giddy and shaky, then stifles a shriek as Clint drops silently from the ceiling.

“I like you, Cap,” he says, _sotto voce_ , and then in the same casual, friendly undertone, “Hurt her and no-one will ever find your body.” He holds her gaze for a minute, and Steph nods, not sure what to say. Clint nods back, claps her on the shoulder, and saunters down the hall toward his quarters.

Steph manages to make it back to her room before she gives in to the urge to happy-dance like a fool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A smattering of updates:
> 
> -So you may notice that this is now tentatively part of a series, because I do want to see what happens to Bruce and Tony outside of Steph and Natasha’s story; likewise with Phil and Clint (probably a prequel for them). Also my ramblings in the comments this weekend gave me the perfect series title and inspired the totally tongue-in-cheek dating manifesto that is now Part 1 of this (gulp) series.
> 
> -I am going to be gone over the weekend so the next chapter is likely to arrive after the 4th.


	7. Backtrack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha panics, and Steph bonds with Bruce.

Natasha didn’t expect to spend the night dreaming in soft-focus on a bed of clouds. She’s a realist (Steph would probably say a cynic), and her life has been hard enough that when good things come her way, her response to them is measured and incremental, and she’s not foolish enough to expect them to linger.

But... when she closes the door behind her and leans against it, she feels content in a way that is somewhat foreign. When she unzips her dress and toes off her shoes and lets her hair fall loose, she feels light and a bit buzzed, like that herbal tea was wine after all. When she slips under the covers, she feels... warm.

So it comes as a bitter surprise that she spends the night tossing and turning, her thoughts wound in an increasingly manic loop of euphoria and anxiety.

One evening with Steph, and she feels stripped bare. That kiss hid nothing and demanded the same from her. She knows it’s a good thing, a step forward. She knows that Steph, out of all the people in the world, is deserving of trust. She can even (almost) accept that this good person, this hero, has placed an astounding amount of trust in Natasha. But there’s this inescapable feedback loop hardwired into her brain, where trust equals untenable risk and relaxing means signing your own death warrant.

She knows it’s a knee-jerk panic response, but she’s powerless to shut it down. The moment she stops moving, her mind is supercharged, every reassuring thought feeding directly into a reason to mistrust it, every argument for placing her faith in Steph leading into a worst-case scenario of what that kind of faith could bring down on their heads, and then looping back again.

Clint would say she’s overthinking this... but he would do the same thing. _Has_ done the same thing, in the not too distant past. Possibly still is, though he wouldn’t share it with her, just like she can’t bring herself to invite him into her roiling personal crisis right now.

When she manages to sleep, she dreams: old missions gone wrong, old contacts betrayed. Old friends tossing Molotov cocktails across the floor of a dingy, ill-lit room to the small hard bed where she is sleeping.

She wakes, every time, sweating. And her thoughts start cycling again.

She’s leapt from buildings before, on missions, riding some misguided faith that someone would catch her -- or, more often, just having made the cool assessment that success in a particular situation is of greater value than her continuing existence.

She knows that the difference between floating and falling is nothing more than perception, and how one expects the time spent airborne to come to a close. Somehow, without quite realizing it until a step too late, she’s dropped herself into an unfamiliar abyss with no sense of its depth and only the most limited, hope-skewed sense of what might halt her descent and where.

 _This is not what she does_ , damnit. She plans. She weighs her options, examines the angles. She manages the situation. She holds back.

She feels anchorless in a way she can’t name. The last time she felt like this, she was all of thirteen, a probationary SHIELD agent torn between an irrational trust in Clint and an unshakeable instinct to go deep, deep underground and never emerge. It took years for that to pass, and Clint never expected anything of her, would have responded to a direct attack with sad, sympathetic eyes and not the slightest sense of anger or betrayal. But Clint understands the game. Steph... could never play.

After all the training, the programming and deprogramming, the reprogramming to withstand interrogation and manipulation, the years of danger and ruthlessness, this -- honest feelings for a strong, kind woman -- is the one area in which her skills completely and utterly fail her. It’s maddening and inescapable and she knows she is taking the coward’s route but she just... can’t... deal. At least not for a little bit longer, while her world attempts to rock itself back onto a new axis of rotation.

She’s never had a panic attack -- she knows how to lock herself down to function on essential systems only -- but she came close a few times, back in the early days with Clint, and she can feel herself teetering on the knife’s edge now. Lips a bit chilled, fingers a little trembly, almost-but-not-quite hyperventilating.

So she does the agent thing. She locks it down. Essential systems only. The rest will come back online when she’s ready.

The kitchen in her quarters is small but well-stocked; she likes to keep her options open. She takes Saturday’s meals alone, at home. Clint may wonder at her absence, but he knows her well enough to leave her to it for a while. She’s not confined, not really; she has several rooms, including a small gym, and a balcony, so she’s not even locked away from the sun. She just needs a few days to... calibrate. Solitude is her natural state of being; it resets her to default levels of calm and control and self-sufficiency. She has spent months alone on one mission or another, and she’s learned to enjoy her own company. To trust it.

It’s not fair to Steph, she knows. Steph will be expecting... something. A smile. A note. An invitation for a second date. But Steph is patient. “Only what we’re sure we want,” she’d said, and “No judgment.” Those are the rules.

 _The rules, the rules, the rules_ , she repeats, like a mantra. Only what she wants. Only what she can give. What _can_ she give? And why didn’t she see this coming, figure it out _before_ she dived in? Steph was... much more than she was expecting. More surprising. More challenging. More... right.

She can do this, right? She can do this... tomorrow. She can’t do this today. Tomorrow. For now, there are old mission reports, new mission reports, paperwork, news to catch up on from obscure corners of the world.

She buries her brain in work.

Coulson will be so pleased.

**********

When Natasha isn’t at breakfast Saturday morning, Steph isn’t sure whether to be worried or relieved that they don’t have to figure out their new dynamic in front of the rowdy, curious, completely-lacking-all-sense-of-personal-boundaries team. Tony does his signature eyebrow-waggle at her, and she dutifully ignores him. Clint looks at her narrowly, blank-faced, and she’s not sure what the etiquette is for greeting the best friend of the person who gave you a Top Ten Greatest Kiss of All Time the night before, but then he twitches ever so slightly and she’s almost certain he’s hiding a grin.

As the day wears on, the leftover high from the date fades into insecurity. Natasha is nowhere to be found, and while this isn’t exactly abnormal, Steph finds herself wishing she knew what to expect, what Natasha is expecting, in the aftermath of one fabulous (she thought, at least) date. What’s the new normal? How long should she wait to... what, call her? Knock on her door? They’ve been running into each other randomly, relying on serendipity to connect. Now everything requires forethought. She doesn’t want to be... pushy. But she doesn’t want to leave it all up to Natasha, either.

By the evening, she’s jittery and guilty, certain that she did something wrong, made some misstep that left Natasha disgusted or dismissive or threatened or just plain turned off, equally certain that she’s overreacting and just doesn’t understand how these things work.

She knows Natasha values her space.

She resolutely does not track her down.

Instead, she scribbles out a note -- an actual note, honest-to-goodness pencil and paper, not an email, which still seems so impersonal.

> Natasha,  
> I had a wonderful time with you last night. I hope we might do it again.  
> Your friend,  
> Steph

It’s stilted and horrible but it’s better than nothing and Steph is certain she can do better if she can just get them face to face again. If Natasha will give her that chance.

Of course, maybe this is nothing. Maybe this is normal.

She hands the note to Clint as he’s returning from the shooting range.

“Would you mind...?”

He catches on instantly. “Sure thing.”

Hope is still jostling for space in her stomach amidst all the nerves. She’s an optimist by nature.

It’ll have to be enough for now.

**********

There’s no sign of Natasha, or any response to the note, when Steph lopes into the kitchen for breakfast the next morning, sweaty and flushed from a run that did very little to relieve her tension. Friday is starting to feel a little unreal, something she dreamed up that is too perfect to have actually happened to her.

Worse, Clint keeps glancing at her out of the corner of his eye when he thinks she’s not aware. He knows... something? Or he suspects something; he seems worried. She had no expectation that he wouldn’t read the note -- it’s a spy thing, or a Clint thing, or maybe just an Avengers thing; whatever, they are horrible at staying out of each other’s business -- but it seems like more than that.

Everyone knows more than she does. She’d resent it, but she’s better than that. More or less.

Tony breaks off a chat with Clint to approach her with a look of wary curiosity, and she just... can’t. “Thanks for the coffee,” she says, too loudly, grabs a croissant, and is out of there.

Solitude, it turns out, is not her friend. She’s climbing the walls after an hour holed up in her quarters.

She ends up taking her sketchbook to Bruce’s lab because she likes Bruce and his calm demeanor is contagious and it’s about time she took him up on his offer of a quiet space to escape the press and furor of the team (“No-one likes to interrupt me,” he said, the balance of irony and self-condemnation in his tone not quite tilted in his favor, “but a little quiet company is always welcome”).

Bruce nods hello when she enters after announcing her presence with a soft knock. “There’s a bean bag chair in the corner by the big... googly... red thing and some chicken gumbo in the fridge... the _food_ fridge,” he says in lieu of a greeting, waving a hand toward the two refrigerators against the wall (one labeled simply “FOOD,” the other covered in signs warning “EXPERIMENTS IN PROGRESS!” and “RADIOACTIVE BACTERIA AHOY” and “DO NOT EAT” and “NOTHING IN THIS FRIDGE WILL TURN YOU INTO SPIDERMAN” and “TONY THIS MEANS YOU”). By the time Steph is finished wondering what series of events inspired this particular configuration of signage, Bruce is back at his microscope, completely absorbed in his work as far as she can tell.

 _Bean... what?_ She sighs and hauls ass to the corner, settling into a lumpy green cushion that has a surprising and strangely comfortable grainy texture. She doesn’t want to interrupt again. She’ll ask Tony about the bean thing later.

She’s been meaning to make her own gallery of the Avengers for a while, as a gift of sorts, a way of capturing the little quirks that make them people as much as superheroes, and she figures it’s as good a form of distraction right now as anything. She sketches Clint drawing his bow in the field to take down a man whose gun is aimed at Natasha’s head. Natasha can’t see either of them (she’s distant and turned away, far in the background), but Clint’s expression is protective and utterly focused as he ignores the more immediate perils bearing down on him. Steph smiles, biting her tongue in concentration, as she smudges the charcoal around his eyes to bring out their fierceness. He reminds her of Bucky, a little, sometimes.

Next she tries her hand at Tony, and it’s a challenge, capturing all that wild, frenetic energy on the page. She starts by drawing him as Iron Man, hurtling upward, moving, for once, in a single direction. She thinks it’s a decent approximation of his determination, and the heroic impulsiveness that always seems to surprise people. She starts a new sketch of him as himself, hunched over a microscope in the lab, but it’s not coming out right; he looks tired and small, not like himself at all.

When Bruce nudges her shoulder, she startles, automatically bringing both hands up. He falls back, ever-so-slightly wary, and she grimaces. “Sorry, I was in another world.” She closes the sketchpad and stands, rolling her shoulders back and shaking her legs out.

Bruce shrugs one shoulder. “It’s a little after one. I thought lunch might be in order. There are enough leftovers for two, if you’d care to join me.” His tone somehow manages to combine welcome with a complete lack of faith that anyone would actually care to join him for anything. Steph doesn’t know how anyone with a heart could bear to say no to him.

“That would be pleasant, thank you.”

Bruce nods and pulls a couple of plastic containers from the food fridge, spooning their contents onto paper plates and sticking them in the microwave. He pulls a couple of stools up to the clean lab table that’s opposite the door and gestures for her to take a seat.

They’ve been eating for about five minutes in companionable silence when Tony bursts through the door, a large cup of coffee in each hand. He screeches to a comical halt when he sees Steph, his eyes wide. He’s practically vibrating with nervous energy.

“Double-fisting it today, Tony?” Steph asks drily.

“Oh, uh, no, uh, hey Cap. Bruce,” and he thrusts one of the coffees out in front of him, wincing a little when some of it sloshes out of the sip-hole and onto his hand, “this is for you. Thought you could, uh, use a little kick. Except, you know, decaf, because, well...”

“Thanks, Tony,” Bruce says calmly. He takes the cup from Tony and then peers at his hand. “How hot is it? Did you burn? Because I could...”

“Oh, no, it’s all a-ok on this end. Well, ok, I should just...”

“Glad to hear that, Tony.” Bruce sounds like he’s talking to either a very small child or a very large bear. “Would you care to join us? There’s more food, I could heat it up.”

Steph watches with interest as Tony’s eyes widen even further. He glances from Bruce to her and back again, and she can almost see their earlier conversation about dating replay in his head.

“No, no,” Tony assures them. “I’ve got places to go, people to... blow up.”

“Ok, Tony,” Bruce says easily. “Thanks for the coffee. It was good to see you.” Tony... squeaks? Steph can’t believe she went to this man for advice. It’s worse than she thought.

“Sure thing, anytime, be back tomorrow, for sure, yes, well then, bye now!” And he’s out the door.

The silence left in his wake is deafening. Bruce’s expression is somewhere between amused and ripped apart.

“You know,” Steph ventures, “Tony’s not a bad guy, under all the... Tony.”

“Yes, I know,” Bruce says. He sips pensively at the coffee.

“And you’re pretty, uh, not bad yourself.”

Bruce cracks a smile. “High praise from Captain America.”

Steph smiles back. “I’m bad at this, aren’t I?”

“A bit.” Bruce reaches across the corner of the table to pat her hand awkwardly. “They say it’s the thought that counts.”

“Was that a joke, Dr. Banner?”

“They do occasionally find their way into my lexicon, Captain Rogers.”

His smile is a shade more genuine now, and he seems at ease with her in a way they haven’t yet managed. Steph is well aware that he’s evading the question, but she’s reluctant to disturb his peace more than she already has. She knows it’s hard-won.

“Thank you for lunch,” she says, and he inclines his head in implicit gratitude at the change in subject. “It was delicious.”

“Join me anytime. I’m used to cooking for a neighborhood; I always have extra.”

“I will take you up on that.”

They smile at each other. Bruce takes a breath likes he wants to say something more.

And that’s when JARVIS informs her in discreet tones that her presence is needed in medical.

**********

After a full day and a half of paperwork, restlessness finally overrides Natasha’s desire for solitude. She still doesn’t want to see anyone -- not Steph, who will expect the kind of easy connection they shared before; not Clint, who will see straight through her -- but she desperately needs to hit something other than the punching bag in her quarters, and she suspects that if she stays cloistered much longer, someone will start to worry and corner her. Steph’s note, slid through the flaps of one of her air vents the night before, alerted her to Clint’s vigilance, at least. And the note has heightened her guilt; she wants to reassure Steph, explain herself, move forward. She just needs to get her head straight first.

A bit of “physical therapy” then (an old joke between her and Clint, from when they used to fight their issues out a little too enthusiastically for Coulson’s taste), and after that she will gather her thoughts and present them to Steph, and together they will... well, she’ll figure that part out later.

Thor is an obvious solution. She knew she put up with his ridiculous syntax for a reason.

“Romansdottir!” he booms in greeting when she enters the training room he’s claimed.

“Thor!” she returns, forcing enthusiasm. She’s covered, though; no-one is ever as enthusiastic as Thor. “I was hoping to test my skills against you.”

“Ah, a contest of comrades!” He is transparently delighted. “I would be honored.”

They fight, freeform, for a full hour before Natasha starts to achieve the focused, energized numbness that she was after. Her muscles are aching, burning in a way that is soothingly familiar, she’s starting to fall into a hazy autopilot of move and countermove, a deep retreat into body and movement and impact in which her brain is mercifully silent.

Unfortunately, her brain is her best weapon. She’s so deep in the zone that she doesn’t register Thor’s lunge to her right as a potential feint. She moves with him, pivots, raises an arm to block, and experiences only a muggy confusion that he is not where she expected.

Natasha has broken plenty of bones in her time; her X-rays tell all the tales of old hurts and lost (or won) battles that her smooth skin never will. It’s been years, though. She’s too good to let it happen now, not in any but the most desperate situation. To let herself be broken, made even temporarily useless, is not an option she accepts. She remembers the pain, the feeling of _wrongness_ , the claustrophobic impracticality of recovery, but it’s muted, distant, inspiring caution more than fear. There’s no urgency to the memory anymore, just a dull ache.

When she hears a sort of snapping-crunching sound, sees Thor’s horrified expression, and feels a sharp jolt, followed by white-hot waves of pain emanating from her forearm, she knows exactly what has happened. She just can’t believe she’s been so _stupid_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a horrible place to leave you hanging! The next chapter will be up by Saturday, it just got too long to lump them both together. Also, it’s possible I am a tiny little bit mean. >:)
> 
> So, this went to a sort of dark panicky self-destructive counterproductive place. I hope it’s not coming across as too schizophrenic. This chapter was actually supposed to be cute sweet next steps and then it just felt sort of wrong and too fast and I was trying to get into Natasha’s headspace and, well, this happened. So, two things: First, I still promise happy endings and uber-positive communication between all, minus sporadic angst interludes (angsterludes?) of the variety displayed above. I’m assuming a fairly dark past for Natasha but I’m not going to go into it in any detail; it’ll be alluded to but not described, as I am still intent on making this primarily happy happy fluff (just, you know, happy fluff involving folks with issues). Second, I’m going to stop including the little “Next” teasers when I post each chapter because I finally understand what people mean when they talk about the characters having other ideas, and I don’t want to be misleading.
> 
> Also worth noting: Natasha’s canon backstory is INSANE, you guys. Just completely mammoth and convoluted and INSANE. So I am simplifying her identity somewhat: she’s a human who got crazy advanced training and programming from a very young age, she has mad skills but hasn’t been enhanced with any superpowers, and she ages at a normal rate. Along those lines, Annagarny has an utterly lovely friendship origin story for Clint and Natasha that has become part of my headcanon for them. Check it out [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/402394).
> 
> And finally: I know nothing about fighting. Or broken bones. I do know plenty about paperwork, but not so much of the secret evil-fighting organization variety. Hopefully stuff will make sense anyway, but let me know if you find anything jarringly wrong.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me. This was a hard chapter to write.
> 
> And thanks for reading this ridiculously long note. :)


	8. Reconnect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha is a very bad patient.

Natasha doesn’t do painkillers, not unless she’s forced to, which usually involves her already being unconscious. And it takes more than a broken arm for her to pass out.

So when Steph bursts into medical ten minutes after the doctor finishes realigning her bones and setting her arm in a cast, she’s perfectly lucid but in what could generously be called a fair amount of pain. It’s not helping the fight-or-flight impulses that have refused to relinquish her brain, especially now that she can’t really do either, fight or flee. She’s never done well with enclosed spaces.

Steph looks so concerned, and she’s so _gentle_ as she presses a hand to Natasha’s forehead (which is completely illogical -- she broke her arm, she didn’t get the flu -- and yet utterly comforting), that Natasha can’t help but flinch away slightly.

Steph draws her hand back, looking guilty and uncertain. “I... I didn’t mean...” She’s stammering, and she looks unhappier than Natasha ever wants to be responsible for, and Natasha would punch the bed if it wouldn’t make her pass out with pain.

“Sorry,” Natasha says miserably, then shakes her head when Steph draws a breath to speak. “No, I know, against the rules, I just... look, we moved too fast.” This is so very much _not_ how she wanted to have this conversation

Steph’s face freezes, and her eyes go blank in a way Natasha didn’t think was possible for Captain Transparency. “I apologize for the misunderstanding, Natasha.” Her voice is unbearably formal and... kind. “You know I value your friendship. I’ll just let you get healed on up here and then we can go back to...”

Natasha hisses in frustration. “No! Not... I don’t mean... It was just a bad couple of days. I didn’t... I can’t...” Steph’s face gets, if possible, stiffer. She’s inching toward the door now.

“God _damnit_!” Lacking other options for therapeutic violence, Natasha bangs her head down against the pillow and then tries not to throw up at the pain the resulting jostling causes.

Steph pauses, some concern filtering through the blankess. “Please don’t hurt yourself.” It’s her Team Leader voice. “Natasha, we can talk later. Your position is safe, I promise you.”

“That is not what I am trying to say!” She’s almost shouting now, and she’s in pain, and this is ridiculous, and Steph is being _stupid_ and the worst part of that is that she knows she has been even more so.

Steph looks surprised at the outburst. It’s rare for Natasha to raise her voice. When she’s angry she always goes quiet.

“Stephanie. Just. Stay with me?” Natasha blurts out through gritted teeth. It should set off a whole new round of panic but instead her mind abruptly empties and she’s able to focus only on the room around her and the woman in front of her. Steph is once again reassuringly transparent; she looks uncertain and hurt and vaguely guilty. “Not your fault,” Natasha adds, and adds ‘confusion’ to the list of expressions she can read flickering across Steph’s face. She’d tried to explain the pseudo-mind-reading thing in their training sessions, but Steph never failed to be surprised when she whipped it out.

“All right,” Steph says after a moment. She sits down in the corner of the room, out of reach but in between Natasha and the door. Natasha isn’t sure if this is to prevent unwanted visitors from getting in or her from getting out, but it makes her feel... safe. Which makes her feel _un_ safe, which reboots the brain spiral that landed her here to begin with, and... no.

She focuses on Steph, fidgeting in the corner, focuses on her tight mouth and tense shoulders, her solidness, the image of her face smiling across the table at Natasha on their date, catching her hand, promising something good. Laughing at her jokes, which just terrify everyone else. Focuses on the fact that she has no idea what Steph is trying to stay but she’s still here. She hasn’t lashed out, hasn’t left.

Natasha matches her breathing to Steph’s rising and falling chest. It’s an old trick. In, out. The spinning in her head gradually slows to a manageable rate.

“Hey, I’ll explain tomorrow, yes? It’s nothing you... I just... hmm. I did not mean we should stop, I just found myself... unprepared. Our date was... good. I am... unused to goodness. Had Thor not compounded the problem with a _damn broken arm_ I would be on my way to talk to you now in a much more... collected manner.”

Steph studies her, concern and wariness and... protectiveness?... flickering tentatively across her face. “I don’t mind it if you’re not collected, you know.”

“I mind,” Natasha responds shortly.

Steph doesn’t lose the crease between her eyebrows, but she nods. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to take any pain meds?”

“Does vodka count?” Natasha isn’t really kidding, but she feels a rush of relief anyway when Steph cracks a smile.

“The doctor told me to expect that question, and she also told me absolutely positively no, under no circumstances is booze an acceptable pain killer, Agent Romanov.”

Natasha sneers her opinion of this bit of medical expertise, and Steph’s smile gets a little bigger. “Fine,” Natasha says, acquiescing as gracefully as someone who has just had their arm accidentally broken by an Asgardian thunder god can. Then she stares in complete amazement as Steph pulls a small hip flask from her back pocket.

“I’m the only one they never suspect, right?”

Natasha suspects her mouth is open. Which is a good thing, or she might have to declare her lifelong devotion on the spot. Steph looks a little smug as she hands the flask over, then she sighs. “I just don’t want you hurting, all right? Don’t go overboard, just... take the edge off.” When Natasha remains gobsmacked, she huffs. “I was in the Army, you know. It wasn’t all ice cream socials and letter jackets. I’m not nearly the perfect shiny relic you all seem to think.”

Natasha finds her voice. “Thanks, Steph. This... I really appreciate this. This will help.” She pauses, unsure how to phrase her next question. “Ah, you don’t... carry that around all the time, do you?”

“What, just because I can?” Steph rolls her eyes. “Tempting, but I snagged it from Tony on the way over here. I’ve seen how you are with medical.”

“Oh,” Natasha says, relieved and only slightly less flabbergasted. She... crap, she can’t open it herself, not with her arm.

She’s debating the logistics of holding the cap in place with her teeth to unscrew it when Steph snatches it back, muttering “Oh, for the love of...” under her breath. She dispenses with the top and hands it back to Natasha, who promptly takes a generous swig, coughs delicately, and takes another.

“Trust Stark to have the good stuff,” she says with heartfelt approval.

Steph takes a moment to run her hands through her hair, pull it straight out into a spiky mess, and then smooth it back down again. She’s still half in leader mode, and it seems to give her an extra shot of confidence that Natasha isn’t about to mess with. It’s not exactly a hardship to play the intractable patient, and she and Steph are slowly regaining their rhythm and rapport.

Steph retrieves the flask, stoppers it, and pulls a sketchbook off the counter; it’s a testament to Natasha’s deteriorated mental state that she hadn’t noticed Steph throwing it down there when she entered. “Try to sleep a little,” Steph says, digging a pencil out of her pocket and preparing to settle in, at the same moment that Natasha asks, “Can I see?”

Steph hesitates briefly, then pulls the chair closer to the bed and opens the book to the first page.

“I’ve been sketching since I woke up,” Steph confides. “Since I was unfrozen, I mean. My way of making sense of the world.”

“And a connection to the past,” Natasha observes, pressing a button that folds her bed a little more upright. Steph looks surprised, but whether it’s by the statement or the bed mechanism, Natasha can’t tell.

“That too, I suppose. Paper is paper.”

“What do you draw?”

“People, mostly. I have a lot of the team. And some of SHIELD, from when I’d just woken up.”

Natasha reaches out with her good hand to smooth over the first page as Steph nervously worries its edges. “Show me?”

“I started with Maria... I wanted to get the _authority_ of her...”

They bend over the sketchbook together, voices murmuring, sharing... just enough. The pain in Natasha’s arm fades to the background, just another inconsequential sensory blip.

 _Yes_ , she thinks, _Yes I can do this. This is good._

And if the panic isn’t entirely gone, at least it’s quieter.

Steph turns the page, and Natasha leans a little closer, lets their arms brush up against one another.

_Yes._


	9. Dating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steph and Natasha figure out how dating works.

It takes them a good hour to pore over the sketchbook. Steph turns the pages and offers quiet, diffident commentary on each drawing, while Natasha glances surreptitiously from the page to Steph and back again, smiling a strange, shy little smile that Steph finds reassuring even though she has no idea how to interpret it.

Natasha asks questions -- where she made each sketch, why she chose each subject, how she got this line or that curve just this way for that effect -- and seems genuinely interested in the answers, despite (or maybe because of) being in obvious pain.

Steph’s in caretaker mode, blocking out the roller coaster of the last forty-eight hours to focus on the present. She enjoys Natasha’s attention but part of her brain is detached, cataloging each wince and every gulp of vodka, trying to judge the extent of the damage and the likelihood of Natasha making it worse before it gets better. The stories she’s heard from Coulson about Natasha (and Clint, for that matter) and medical are hair-raising. She keeps reaching out to touch Natasha’s shoulder, push her hair out of her eyes, stroke her hand, and then drawing back when she remembers that Natasha doesn’t find those things comforting, not like Steph would.

She respects it, and she wants to understand it, but it’s hard to pull back.

Finally, Natasha, who is nothing if not observant, makes a frustrated noise, grabs Steph’s arm with her good hand, and wraps it around her shoulders, forcing Steph to sit half on the bed. It’s not exactly comfortable, but she would eat her own tongue before she’d protest.

“There,” Natasha says. “That is good. Just.. leave it there, yes?” She’s definitely getting drunk. Her Russian accent is starting to surface.

“Yes,” Steph says firmly, quashing the completely inappropriate thought that drunk Natasha is kind of... adorable. An adorable drunk assassin who might want to break up with her when she’s sober again because of reasons too convoluted for Steph to understand. If there’s even anything to break up; after all, it was only one date. And some mutual friendship and life-saving. How do people figure these things out? She is so very screwed.

She reaches down with her free hand to turn to the next page as if nothing has changed, and Natasha lets her head rest on her shoulder. Her hair is soft against Steph’s jaw.

So. Very. Screwed.

“JARVIS?” Steph asks quietly when they finally reach the end of Steph’s collection and turn to a blank page. Natasha makes no move to shift their positions, and Steph certainly isn’t going to be the one to make a move away. “Are you there?”

“Yes, Captain. What do you need?”

“Can you have someone bring us some dinner in here?”

“Certainly.”

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” Natasha says, slurring slightly. She’s downed an impressive amount of vodka.

“I’ll stay while we eat. You’ll feel worse tomorrow if you don’t. Then I’ll leave, and I’ll come back tomorrow, and we can talk. I mean, unless, you want me to stay. I, um, I will.”

Natasha pulls back, looking exhausted and uncertain. “I’ll sleep better,” she says in a small voice, “if I’m alone. I’m sorry.”

“Rules,” Steph says succinctly, torn between reassurance and frustration. She wishes it was within her superpowers to just make Natasha _relax_.

Natasha grins a little. “I keep forgetting. Good thing you’re such a stickler.”

“It’s what I do.”

Steph runs a hand through her hair and feels Natasha’s eyes on her, warm and considering and weary.

“Yes,” is all Natasha says.

**********

Steph leaves her sketchbook with Natasha, who wanted to look through it again. When she returns to next morning, Natasha is gone but the sketchbook is on the pillow and there’s a note on the last, blank page, unsigned but recognizably Natasha’s elegant, economical script:

_Sparring tomorrow and then perhaps a movie? I shall look forward to it._

Steph _feels_ the oxygen work its way back into her blood as she studies the note for a minute, torn between exasperation and affection and cautious hope. She scribbles a reply on a fresh sheet of paper and tucks it discreetly into the air vent outside her room. She has boundless faith in Clint’s instinct to meddle.

**********

Natasha finds Steph’s note on her pillow, along with a Lindt dark chocolate truffle that is as good as a calling card from Clint. She doesn’t want to know how he got past her security, but she’ll be updating the vent traps for sure.

_**No sparring with a broken arm.** That is an order._

_A movie, however, would be lovely. I will pick you up at 2. Wear walking shoes if you would like to visit the pier afterwards._

She smiles a little. Steph has managed to give her both an invitation and an easy out, both of which are more than most people bother with, when it comes to her.

Out of habit, she turns the note over to check the back. _TOLD YOU SO_ is written in jagged, blocky letters she recognizes as Clint’s, along with a little smiley face with suggestive eyebrows.

She laughs out loud.

**********

The weeks start to pass, and they fall into a rhythm of sorts, find their new pattern.

They’re dating, for sure. They talked about it (it was a horrendously awkward conversation and they were both relieved when it was done and they could get to sparring -- _carefully_ \-- in comfortable silence, but still) and agreed. Dating, monogamous, moving slow. Not that the last two were really in question.

It’s easy again, though Steph can’t help but notice that Natasha is holding herself a little closer than she did on their first date, sharing a little less. She understands that’s what Natasha needs, understands that she has to be patient, understands that were their personalities only slightly different she would be the one in need of patience, understands that Natasha is worth any wait, that being with Natasha in any way is a gift. She understands that this is Natasha’s way of preventing another panic attack, which is the last thing she wants her to have to go through.

Still. It’s frustrating. Delicious and wonderful and amazing and frustrating, and Steph has to keep reminding herself that she can’t just grab Natasha’s hand and pull her in for a sweet kiss on a whim, that she has to be more perceptive and less... bull-in-a-china-shop than she’s used to being. This is one door she can’t just crash through.

They establish an informal schedule, seeing each other every other day to avoid so it never feels like they’re living atop one another. Some days it’s just lunch together, or a sparring session, or an agreement that they will both show up to Tony’s movie night du jour. Sometimes it’s more involved -- a night out, a day trip someplace fun, a game of chess over lunch (Steph loses, always, but she’s learning). Steph can tell that Natasha is relaxing by increments. She’s still not sharing the way she did on that first date, but she’s joking more, touching more, sitting closer.

When it first looked like her crush might be requited, Steph had thought Natasha would have to be the one to make the first move, _all_ the first moves, because Steph would be too nervous, too... ugh... virginal, for lack of a better word. Now that she knows Natasha a little better, she realizes that she _has_ to let Natasha make the first moves because Natasha is infinitely more nervous about this than she is. All (well, ok, _most_ ) of her first-time jitters have resolved themselves into a tensely coiled knot of anticipation in her stomach, and a deep sense of ease and tenderness whenever Natasha touches her. Whenever she’s in the room, really.

No matter what they’re doing (or not doing), Steph is loving every minute spent with Natasha, loves the way she’s secretly a class clown but has everyone too terrified of her to realize it, loves the way she always stops to pet any dogs tied up on the street until their owner returns and is greeted by an icily threatening lecture on proper dog care that at last count has made at least five grown men cry, loves the way she _does not stop fighting_ , ever, even when Steph worries that she should. She loves the fleeting moments Natasha really lets go, when she laughs without inhibition (a startled guffaw instead of the demure chuckle she usually lets slip) or tells Steph something no-one else knows or just closes her eyes for a moment as they lean against each other.

Anticipation... yeah. There’s a lot of that. And Steph’s enjoying every second.

**********

One thing she realizes pretty quickly? Natasha has the absolute best scuttlebutt on all the Avengers. Steph has learned more about her comrades-in-arms since they started dating than she did from all the briefings she got before (and after) she joined the team.

Today they’re having pastries in a cafe after exploring MOMA together, and speculating as to how the rest of the Avengers have been spending their time in the quiet period they’ve had since defeating Loki and welcoming Coulson back from the pseudo-dead (Steph still wants to punch Fury about that. Again.).

“So, Tony and Clint...” Natasha begins, leaning forward conspiratorially. There’s a sparkle in her eye that makes her look simultaneously ten years younger and ten times more dangerous.

“Yes.” Steph leans forward, too, feeling an absurd instinct to lower her voice.

“There’s a third option.” Natasha often has this roundabout way of talking that forces Steph to fill in the blanks; she’s not sure if it’s a spy thing, or just how Natasha’s brain works. She’s able to follow the twists and turns of their conversations much better than she could at the beginning. So she knows immediately that Natasha’s referring to the matchmaking, but she’s not quite clear on the options thing.

“A third...?”

“We can pretend we don’t know, which they won’t believe, or we can make a stink and try to shut them down, which they won’t like, _or_ or we can turn the tables. Get to work on Tony and Bruce. And then... well, we’ll need to brainstorm what to do with Clint.”

“We could try... do you think, is there a possibility that Phil might feel the same way Clint does?” Phil is hard to read, and he does seem to have a bit of a crush on Steph, which is awkward, but she’s caught him looking at Clint in the field a few times with an expression that’s a few degrees beyond professional concern, so maybe...

“Given that they have been sleeping together for the past five years, I would say the probability is high,” Natasha says drily.

“ _What_?” Steph says loudly, choking on her water. A few people look up. Natasha grins, looking smug.

“Indeed,” she says. “Clint thinks I am still unaware.” She sniffs derisively. “Phil knows better.”

“Do the rest of the Avengers...?”

“No, Phil and Clint have kept it secret. I don’t know why. Fury cannot exactly fire either of them.” She smiles a little. It looks... wistful. “It took them forever, really. They were working together when I met Clint, and they were... good for each other. In a lot of ways. But it took them years.”

“How did you...?”

“It’s small things. Most people don’t see. Clint always relaxes a little when they’re both on base together. Phil has trouble not cracking up at his jokes, even the bad ones, when we’re on comms.” Natasha’s voice has softened, and there’s a naked, faraway look in her eyes. “Sometimes they’ll both disappear at the same time in the middle of a stressful mission. And whenever we’re in the field and Clint sees a gaming store, he always goes in and checks out the trading cards. Sometimes they’ll have these parallel reactions to something -- a word, a food, a movie -- for no apparent reason. Little things. But I just... I see.”

“Wow,” Steph says.

Natasha face conveys a complicated interplay of embarrassment and longing. “Clint always used to say no-one would ever put up with him. He still says it, but it doesn’t sound the same, it’s not bitter now, more like... a joke. And if he says it when Phil’s around, Phil will whack him on the back of the head, and Clint won’t even complain.”

Steph smiles. “They sound... really good. Clint’s a good guy. And I don’t know Phil so well, but...”

“Him, too,” Natasha says. “Together, they... give me hope.” Her smile is a little lopsided, and then she shakes her head and is once more brisk and cunning and light. “So we have to be a little more creative with Clint, for our payback.”

Steph suddenly can’t stop herself from all-out beaming at Natasha, who has so much love left for the world despite everything it’s handed her. “You are the best everything,” she says, overwhelmed with a desire to make Natasha see how amazing she is, and then she blushes, which is no surprise to anybody, but Natasha is blushing, too, which she’s never seen before. She reaches across the table to gently touch Natasha’s cheek, feel its uncharacteristic heat. Natasha’s breath catches in her throat and she pushes imperceptibly into Steph’s touch, but she won’t quite meet her eyes.

Steph pulls back, still blushing, and Natasha flicks her eyes up to give her a shy, beautiful half-smile. “The best everything?” she asks, teasing a little, deflecting.

“Everything,” Steph says firmly.

“Um, that’s a lot.” It’s kind of a flirtatious thing to say, except Natasha would never use such an obvious and awkward line, so she must be really flustered.

“It sure is,” Steph says, soft and earnest, and Natasha blushes all over again and looks down, taking a bit bite of her chocolate croissant.

Steph glances away, too, and loops back to the original subject, and lets Natasha pull her screens back in place, because that’s how she works, that’s how _they_ work, and it’s ok, it’s good, it fits. And they go back to plotting evil fluffy doom for their friends.

**********

Tony keeps holding Avengers movie nights, though they’ve slowed to about once a week, and Natasha and Steph keep attending. It’s a bit of an open secret now that they’re... whatever they are. Natasha is fairly certain that everyone they work with, with the possible exception of Thor, is aware by now that their time together signals something more than simple friendship. However, she’s not ready to be fully public yet, doesn’t want to be asked questions she hasn’t even answered to Steph yet, and certainly doesn’t need their every interaction scrutinized by a team of highly trained spies, soldiers, and scientists.

So those nights are as awkward as they are fun. Steph always sits first and then waits for Natasha to choose her spot, which is across the room as often as it is next to her. That’s how they’re doing most things these days, Steph issuing subtle, open invitations and then allowing Natasha to choose the degree to which she accepts them. It’s silly, really, and sweet, and Natasha can’t help feeling that it’s more than she deserves. She knows that if it was up to Steph, they would curl up together in the love seat to watch every movie and cuddle the hell out of each other, teammates’ delicate sensibilities be damned.

Tonight, as usual, they enter together, Steph striding in front of her to claim a soft chair and leaving Natasha the option of sitting on the floor to lean against her legs or settling in elsewhere. Natasha’s about to sit next to Clint on the love seat when she catches him rolling his eyes and thinks, _Right. The rules. Doing what we want. Fuck it. You’re ready, Agent._

She veers toward Steph, gratified when Steph’s eyes light up at her approach, yanks her to her feet, and pulls her across the room without a word.

“Move,” she tells Clint, and when he starts to say something, adds, “ _Now_!”

Clint moves.

Natasha pushes Steph abruptly down onto the love seat and sits next to her. Close.

Everyone is looking at them. “ _What?_ ” she growls. Everyone looks away.

There’s a moment of deafening silence. Then, “Hey, Stark, start the damn movie before we get old in here. I mean, it’s too late for you and all, but the rest of us are trying to hang on to our youth.”

Natasha shoots Clint a look that clearly conveys _Thanks_ and also _You know you’re an asshole, right_? A quick grin ghosts over his face before he turns his attention to the carrot-apple muffins Bruce is setting on the table, discreetly elbowing Tony in the ribs. Tony takes the cue and starts fiddling with the remote, while Thor adjusts his armor and tries not to look confused.

Beside her, Steph making a heroic attempt to act casual when it’s obvious she’s thrumming with as much gleeful energy as a kid in a candy shop. It’s a lost cause, really; she’s an open book. But it’s cute as hell.

“Give it up,” Natasha whispers in her ear. “You’re allowed to look happy. I _want_ you to look happy. I want you to _be_ happy.”

The smile that takes over Steph’s face steals Natasha’s breath away, and the rest of the room disappears. Without allowing herself to think about it too much, she draws Steph’s arm over her shoulders, leans her head into the crook of Steph’s neck, and draws her legs partly under her so she’s sprawled half on the love seat, half on Steph. Steph’s arm tightens -- she thinks it’s involuntary, Steph is usually so careful -- and she presses in a little closer in assent. She feels vulnerable and... ok with it. For a little while, at least. She trusts these people, all of them.

The movie starts, and Natasha angles her head a little so she can watch it. Tony chose something called _Forgetting Sarah Marshall_. “You’ll love Apatow,” he promised Clint, before turning to Steph. “You, Capsicle, maybe not so much, but it’s worth a shot.” To Natasha he promised an abundance of man-pain, and Bruce and Thor will watch pretty much anything. So here they are. Natasha takes a deep breath, hyper-aware the woman next to her.

Steph's shoulder is somehow hard and soft at the same time, and she smells like bread and soap and apple pie, which Natasha thinks is both perfect and completely ridiculous. She can feel the blush that heats Steph’s face at each dirty joke, and struggles again to reconcile that with the woman who kissed her in the hallway and brought her vodka in medical.

Her injured arm is out of the cast but still tender, and she holds it protectively against the side of her body that’s not flush against Steph, who is careful not to jostle her when she laughs. This happens almost as often as she blushes, which is a lot, and Natasha enjoys the way Steph’s body vibrates against her ear, the way they both become a little more pliant and relaxed with each joke.

Steph lets her far hand, the one not draped around Natasha, fall across her lap so it’s in Natasha’s reach, casual, like it’s not adorably conspicuous. Natasha reaches out with her good hand to hold Steph’s, and strokes her thumb up and down the lifeline on Steph’s palm, smiling at the catch in her breath. Steph traces a gentle finger up and down the inside of Natasha’s thumb in turn, and she shivers a little.

They stay snuggled together for the duration of movie night, playing with each other’s fingers, occasionally drawing back for a whisper or a smile before settling back in.

Natasha has absolutely no idea what happens in the movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to say it, but I want to send a HUGE thank you to everyone who’s read this and everyone who's left comments and kudos. This is my first foray into writing and it is incredibly encouraging and wonderful to know that this story is making other people out there happy. I HEART YOU ALL YOU ARE AWESOME.


	10. Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steph miscalculates. Awkwardness continues. Also, zombies!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long long delay! This chapter is all action-y, which I've never written before, and then there was RL craziness, and then wow a month. :( Anyway, here it is, more schmoop to come soon, and at some point I swear the girls are going to stop sulking and earn their M rating...

Unfortunately, things can’t stay quiet forever. It’s about a month later that the zombie hordes rise up.

Well, that’s how Tony puts it.

In the briefing, Coulson describes the situation more like, “An unknown enemy has used what we believe to be a wide-distribution hormonal weapon to turn our own citizenry into its army. And,” pausing to massage the bridge of his nose, “for the duration of their servitude, they,” he sighs, rolls his eyes, and recites the rest in a long-suffering monotone: “Their motor and cognitive functions are impaired, and they are controlled through a manufactured desire to consume raw flesh.”

That sounds... vague and unpleasant. “Meaning?” Steph demands.

Coulson tilts his head back to look up at the ceiling (Clint waves cheerily at him from the vent he’s currently hanging upside down from) and takes a deep breath. “Meaning they shamble more than walk, moan more than talk, and want to, ah, bite you, mostly.”

“Meaning?” Steph asks again. From the rest of the team’s reactions to this description, she gets the feeling she’s missing something.

“Meaning zombies!” Tony sings out gleefully, then looks chastened when Bruce, who chose the seat next to him (which has not gone unnoticed by Steph) murmurs something in his ear.

“Zombies?” Steph asks.

Tony _bounces_. “Oooh, JARVIS, make a note, we need to add the oeuvre of one George A. Romero to our movie night rotation.”

“Done, sir,” JARVIS says. There’s a banked excitement in his mechanical British tones that does nothing for Steph’s peace of mind. She really has to get Tony and Bruce together before Tony starts plotting world domination.

“Zombie fist bump!” Tony says to Bruce, who blandly raises a clenched fist and taps it against Tony’s before returning his attention to the briefing papers.

On second thought, getting them together could be just as terrifying.

Phil continues, ignoring them all, “ _Zombies_ is an imprecise and apocryphal term, and using it has the further disadvantage of potentially inciting a panic. Therefore, _you will not_.”

“Zombies zombies zombies,” Tony mutters under his breath. Bruce elbows him, but his lips twitch.

“Indeed, Mr. Stark. Please, do try me. Now, mission parameters. The chemical that controls these poor souls is communicable through saliva, blood, any contact involving bodily fluids. The original release of the weapon was fairly localized, but it’s spread faster than SHIELD can contain it. That’s where the Avengers come in...”

**********

And that’s how Stephanie Rogers, clad in full Captain America regalia, finds herself in the middle of a warehouse district surrounded by moaning, shambling, surprisingly-destructive-for-their-speed “hormonally compromised hostiles” while the Avengers try to fight their way through to the villain they’ve slapped with the unofficial code name Asshat Puppetmaster.

“Even for us, this is strange, right?” she’d asked Natasha in a quiet moment after they’d suited up and were waiting to board the Helicarrier to take them to the remote Arizona town SHIELD has pinpointed as the source of the problem. Natasha laughed, glanced around to check that they were alone, and pulled Steph’s face down for a kiss. They’re still working back up to the hot-and-heavy making out of their first date, but lately they’ve been getting close enough that Steph is weak in the knees pretty much 24/7.

“As Tony would say, weird to the weird,” Natasha confirmed. She started to move away, but allowed herself to be pulled back in when Steph tugged on her wrist, smiling a little shyly. Steph kissed the corner of her mouth, and Natasha closed her eyes and rested her forehead on Stephanie’s shoulder, lips distractingly close to her collarbone, and they both relaxed into each other for a few sweet, soft moments, until Clint coughed discreetly behind them.

Their orders are to find whoever’s controlling all this mayhem and take them out, avoiding the zombies as much as possible and disabling rather than killing when they have to engage. Bruce is pretty sure he can figure out a cure once they’ve isolated the weapon used, so he’s prepping for the science back in the Helicarrier, because the Hulk isn’t too good at distinguishing between enemies to kill and enemies to disable until they can be de-zombified.

Tony’s airborne, scanning the area with a triple-threat body heat/hormone/radio signal tracker he jury-rigged into the Iron Man suit and transmitting his in-progress triangulation back to the Avengers on the ground.

“Iron Man, report?” Steph asks, braining (ha!) five hormonally compromised... hell, _zombies_ \-- if Coulson actually meant for them to use a different term he’d have come up with one that wasn’t such a mouthful -- with a single swipe of her shield.

“I think we’re getting close,” he says, entirely too chipper. “Never doubt my braaaaaaiiiiiinnnnnsssss.” Out of the corner of her eye, Steph sees Natasha aim a dramatic eyeroll at the sky as she renders one zombie unconscious with a double punch and lands a kick that sends another zombie flying through the air to knock four more down like dominoes.

Zombies, they have learned through trial and success, are not great at getting up once they’ve fallen.

“ETA?”

“Just give me one more minute and I’ll have coordinates.”

“Great. Clint?” Clint and Thor are on the opposite end of the district, working their way toward the center just like Steph and Natasha are doing.

“Thor and I have incapacitated about two thirds of the hostiles here, and we’re loading them up in SHIELD vans as we go.” Clint is all business on a mission, but she knows he’s saving up punchlines for their debrief later.

At times like this, it feels like Steph and Natasha have been fighting together all their lives. They stand back to back, methodically taking down the oncoming horde. Sometimes Natasha or Steph will throw in a fancy move, but for the most part the zombies aren’t very creative, so they just line them up and knock them down. Natasha seems to have an almost supernatural awareness of when a zombie is approaching in Steph’s blind spot, lashing out with forceful precision to maintain the bubble of safe space around them. There’s something almost soothing about the rhythm, about knowing that Natasha has her back (literally), that they can stand together and hold their ground against hundreds.

“Ladies,” Tony says in their ears. Natasha snarls and Steph makes a mental note to remind Tony later, _again_ that _Ladies_ is not an acceptable form of collective address for the two of them, even if it’s being used ironically and/or for the sole purpose of making people yell at him because for some reason he’s twisted and finds that fun. “I have a lock.”

“Fantastic,” Steph says as Natasha bounces herself off of Steph’s cupped hands to kick a circle of seven zombies in the face, remaining aerial the whole time, Xena-style. Damn. “Where?”

“Southwest corner, yellow shed next to a blue warehouse with a hole in the east-sloped roof, padlock on the door. There may be some sort of underground escape, so try for stealth here.”

“I can do stealth,” Steph replies. Natasha snorts, eyeballing her uniform.

“Widow’s right. This needs a less spangly... WHOA, what the hell?”

“Tony?”

“Zombies are doing something weird... er. Weirder. Um, hostiles seem to be breaking off the attack and...”

“Holy SHIT,” Clint yelps suddenly in Steph’s ear, and Natasha stills, her eyes narrowing. “No no no no no. That is NOT OK, people, I have a need to SLEEP sometime EVER AGAIN, what the HELL...”

The zombies circling Steph and Natasha abruptly pair off and start attacking each other, literally tearing themselves apart. It takes Steph a moment to understand what has just happened. The scene is grotesque; there’s something incredibly wrong about watching creatures fight the sole purpose of mutual destruction, making no attempt at any sort of defense. Steph dashes forward and knocks heads together until this lot is safely unconscious on the ground, but she feels a creeping anxiety for the rest of the horde, the ones that aren’t in front of them.

If the zombies were actual hostiles, this would be great. Instead, they’ve just gone from needing to protect five people from lasting harm, to needing to protect several hundred. Getting through this with no casualties just became more or less impossible. Damn it. This means...

“He’s onto us,” Tony confirms from on high. “Bastard. Forget stealth, just get in there. I’ll keep an eye on the signal, let you know if he moves. Start knocking out zoms if I get the chance.”

“Check,” Steph says, and looks at Natasha, who seems mildly surprised by how nauseated the whole scene is making her. “Ok, stealth is out. I’ll go in, you keep working inwards, try to prevent as many casualties as you can.”

“Wait,” Natasha says, and pulls apart two prone zombies locked in a disturbing cannibalistic parody of snuggling, letting them drop to either side before stepping away. “Ew. I don’t like the look of this, Cap. We should both go in.”

Steph does the math in her head, and it’s not pretty. “Too many civilian casualties that way. You need to stay. I’ll be fine.”

“Steph...”

“That’s an order.” Steph turns to run toward Tony’s coordinates, but Natasha sidesteps her, blocking her path and invading her space in a way that would be fantastic on a date but is just frustrating at work. Asshat Puppetmaster is getting away, and civilians are killing themselves right and left and if she stands here talking about it one second more without _doing something_ her brain is going to explore.

Natasha’s not backing down. “Steph -- _Cap_ \-- I don’t like the look of this. You’re going into an unknown situation with an enemy who we _know_ likes to play around with mind control weaponry. You could be compromised. You need backup.”

“I have Tony on the comms, he can be here in ten seconds flat. But I need you to stay out here and keep casualties down. If we both go in, these people are all done for. And like you said, unknown biological weaponry. It’s less likely to hurt me than you.”

Natasha shakes her head. “Doesn’t mean it _won’t_. Standard SHIELD procedure, take backup when entering an unknown situation.”

“ _I’m_ not SHIELD standard issue.” Steph is aware that she’s almost shouting. “I’m telling you, these people need you and I don’t.”

Natasha’s eyes betray a flicker of hurt before she locks them down. Steph would feel guilty if there weren’t _people trying to eat each other_ everywhere. “But...”

Steph takes a step away, out of physical reach, slamming the neutral face Natasha’s been teaching her into place over her features. “We don’t have time for this.” She sees Natasha take a breath to argue more, and she sees a pair of zombies go down behind her, and she snaps. “You may not care about these people dying in the streets, but you have your orders. Follow them.” It’s pompous and pointless and it’s out of her mouth before she can take it back.

“Fuck you,” Natasha says, low and angry. Steph opens her mouth with no idea what she can say to make this right, but Natasha has already turned away and resumed knocking zombies unconscious with a bit more force than is strictly necessary. Feeling sick to her stomach, Steph kicks a wall and then takes off for the warehouse.

When she opens the door, she sees equipment strewn around the floor, but no person anywhere. She steps inside cautiously, surveys the corners. Nothing.

This feels wrong.

She inches into the room, eyes scanning frantically for signs of life. Her comm is full of static and disjointed status reports -- none from Natasha, though -- and she considers calling for backup.

And then there’s a flash of a sickly orange-green light, and Steph feels something cold and clammy sweep over her. She turns around to find the architect of this _truly bad day_ aiming an unknown weapon straight at her, waves of vapor rising off its globular contours. She thinks she sees Natasha sail through the air, except why would Natasha be here? And then nausea sweeps through her and the room goes dark.

**********

Natasha paces the hall outside medical, trying to get her head on straight. The image of Steph crumpled unconscious on the ground with a weapon pointed at her head is a tough one to shake. She thinks it might be permanently burned into her retinas, the afterimage fading into focus every time she closes her eyes. It’s stupid, because this is what they _do_ , get beat up in creative ways in the name of saving the world, and it’s ridiculous that after all these years in the game she can’t handle something so utterly routine as a friend’s trip to medical.

By the time Steph went down, the operation was mostly clear; Clint and Thor tag-teamed to subdue the rest of the zombies, Clint with a tranq gun, Thor with his “mighty fists.” Natasha had lasted about three seconds before the feeling of _wrongness_ overwhelmed her and she turned around to follow Steph to zombie HQ.

The puppetmaster, who’d apparently managed to hack their comms once he realized they were there and was only expecting one assailant, was fairly easy to take down at short range once his weapons had been bypassed. Surprise was definitely on her side. That and a lot of anger.

The rest of it -- the part where Steph wouldn’t wake up, and Natasha couldn’t answer all the questions the medics had, and they all evac’d the hell out and left SHIELD to deal with the cleanup -- is a blur.

The fact that Steph is going to be okay in no way makes up for what their last words to each other could have been.

“Hey,” Clint says softly, materializing out of nowhere to lay a gentle hand on her shoulder.

She takes a deep breath that is regimentedly even, then lets it out in an uncontrolled whoosh of air. “Hey,” she says back, and lets him snake an arm around her shoulders, leaning into him in a way he knows better than to acknowledge.

“How’s Cap?” he asks

“Medical says she’ll be fine, but she’ll need to be monitored for a while. The weapon he used discharged some sort of supervirus -- they got her quarantined right away, but it looks like she’s not contagious. It mutates faster than the human immune system can keep up. If she was anyone else...” Clint squeezes her a little tighter, and Natasha shakes her head and breaks away, clenching her fists.

“She was right, too. I argued with her in the middle of the mission, wasted time, and she was right. And then what I said...”

“So, hey, first fight. It happens. If you knew how much Phil and I --” He breaks off abruptly, looking horrified, and Natasha has her first genuine laugh since they left the tower.

“Clint, I can’t tell you how shocked I am to hear that.” Natasha doesn’t bother with even a token effort at an innocent face. Clint studies her a moment, then snorts.

“Later,” he says.

“I look forward to it.”

Her smile fades as the day comes back to her and she slumps against the wall. “I hate this place.”

“Agreed one thousand percent,” Clint says with feeling.

“I don’t know what to think. I went against orders. I know there were civilian losses because of that, and she has to think I’m a bad person, but I just don’t... she was more important. I can’t... I’m not selfless like that. I can’t play fair all the time.”

“It was a hard call. Not necessarily the wrong one. Backup was the right way to go. Do you think she would have let you go in there alone?”

“I tried,” Natasha admits. It’s one more thing she doesn’t know how to process. “If I’d succeeded, I’d be dead.”

It’s barely perceptible, even to her, but Clint flinches. Phil’s near-miss is still very close. “You forget our capacity for medical miracles here,” he reminds her with patently fake levity. “And if you hadn’t gone in after her, who knows what that psycho would have pulled on her next.”

Natasha shrugs a little. “Be that as it may, now a bunch of people are dead and Captain America’s got the super-flu and it’s my fault.”

“What the... Your fault for not _dying_?” Clint asks, his voice rising incredulously.

Natasha resumes pacing. “See, this is why I can’t go in there yet, I’m not making any sense, but she’s in there alone when the last time she woke up in medical it was to find out her whole world was gone, and...”

Clint grabs her hand and ignores her attempts to retrieve it. “Whoa, hey, ok, first of all, she’s not alone. Phil’s in there with her. I think this is, like, fantasy number eight on his Captain America fanboy checklist.” Natasha cracks a very tiny smile, because yes, that is probably true, and also, Clint is delusional if he thinks the teasing affection in his tone whenever he talks about Coulson’s Cap obsession sounds anything like the insubordinate snark he means it to. And also because knowing Phil’s keeping Steph company does make her feel a better. “Second, I don’t think it’s necessarily going to go over badly that you’re kind of shaken up that she got hurt. It seems to me that most of the ways you could take that are the right ones. She probably wants you to hold her hand, but I don’t think she wants you to be supernanny here.”

Natasha takes a deep breath and nods reluctantly.

“Third, no matter what you said or she said, she is crazy about you. We all say dumb shit. That is a Barton-certified rule of life.”

Natasha glares a little. “Some of us say more dumb shit than others,” she says, a hint of warning creeping into her tone.

“Whatever. And fourth, you _fucking dumbass_ , if you ever apologize for avoiding a life-threatening situation again, so help me, I...” He pauses, mouth working silently. “Seriously, what is it with people I... fucking idiot martyrs... you can’t just...” He pulls at his hair, eyes frantic and far away.

“Clint...” She follows her first impulse and hugs him, a real hug, the kind she avoided like the plague before she started dating Stephanie Rogers and discovered that hugs were actually really nice. Clint is stiff with surprise, and then suddenly his arms are hard around her and he’s shaking a little, his face in her shoulder. She wishes she could convey how much she wishes that people he loved weren’t always in danger, how sorry she is that she puts herself there, for his sake if not her own, how happy it makes her to see him tempering his own recklessness to make it home to Phil. Who she’s not supposed to know about. Because they are both idiots.

Clint’s eyes are overly bright when he pulls back. “Well, that was weird,” he says cheerfully.

“Yes,” she says. There’s an awkward silence. She folds her arms.

Clint’s eyes flicker past her shoulder, and she hears Phil cough behind her.

“She’s asking for you,” Phil says gently. Natasha swallows and nods. He squeezes her shoulder lightly as she walks past. “Good work today, Natasha. Good instincts.”

Phil’s superpower is that it’s impossible not to believe whatever he tells you when he says it in that unassuming, matter-of-fact tone, even when your gut is screaming the opposite, that you fucked up, that you alienated your partner, that you can’t be much longer for this team. Natasha manages a strangled acknowledgement of his praise, and Phil smiles at her like he knows exactly what’s going through her head. He probably does.

Just before they round the corner, she sees Phil put a steadying hand on the small of Clint’s back. Clint’s jaw clenches, and then he sags a little, letting Phil hold him up as they disappear from her line of sight.

They really need to get past this stealth thing. For two highly trained government spies, they suck at it.

She squares her shoulders and heads for Steph’s room.

**********

“Oh, thank God,” is the first thing that Steph says when Natasha tentatively opens the door. Her voice sounds clogged and raw. “They said you were fine but I’m less trusting about these things than I used to be. And I could have sworn I saw you there after I was hit, so...”

“You’re babbling,” Natasha observes, cutting her off. “How do you feel?”

“Cold. Achy. Sick,” Steph admits. Her face is pale, and she looks small and beaten down, half-sitting on the bed. Natasha fumbles in a cupboard, and when she turns back to Steph, a blanket in her hand, she doesn’t look as shaken as she feels.

“Lie back,” Natasha says, pushing firmly on Steph’s shoulder when she hesitates, and drapes the blanket over her. It seems like a thing to do.

Steph pulls the blanket up to her chin like a little kid and smiles a little. “Your bedside manner is interesting.”

“No doubt.”

“I, um,” Steph closes her eyes for a moment, then looks at Natasha dead-on. “I lost my temper. I’m sorry. What I said wasn’t fair, and it’s not what I think. I was scared.”

Natasha feels suddenly boneless as she collapses into the easy chair by the bed.”Me, too. I’m sorry I swore at you.”

“I appreciate that,” Steph says, “but it’s my responsibility as team leader to maintain a cool head and...”

“Oh, get over yourself,” Natasha interrupts without really thinking.

Steph stares at her a moment, then cracks a smile. “Really?”

“God, this was a long day,” Natasha says in almost-apology. “Let me rephrase. Get over yourself, Captain America, sir, I’m here for Stephanie Rogers and you are relieved of duty for the night because she has the flu and isn’t going to be doing anything but eating chicken soup and sleeping.”

Steph’s smile widens.

“I could totally take down Captain America if I wanted,” Natasha adds as an afterthought, smug.

“Challenge accepted,” Steph quips, and then her whole body convulses with nausea and she leans over the side of the bed to vomit into a metal bowl. A mechanical hand reaches out for it once she’s done retching, and it disappears into the wall.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha says. She half-stands, and awkwardly smooths the hair off of Steph’s hot, clammy forehead. Steph pushes into the touch like a cat.

“I want to roll my eyes, but it would make me throw up again,” Steph says hoarsely. “Damn, I did not miss this part of being... me. Old me. I think I’d rather just get beat the hell up. Uh, would you mind getting me some water?”

“Water. Yes.” There’s a stack of large paper cups by the sink. Natasha fills one with the coldest water she can run. Steph accepts it with a grateful sigh and sips tentatively, the silence stretching out in a way that’s strangely comfortable. Natasha threads her hand under Steph’s neck and lets it rest there, soothing. She’s seen Phil do that, sometimes, when Clint was feverish. It seemed... nice.

“I hate that you’re seeing me like this,” Steph says suddenly.

“Please,” Natasha scoffs. “It’s a way of life. Besides, bile is better than blood.”

“I... hmmm.”

Maybe Natasha’s superpower is ending all conversations on a note of discomfited befuddlement. She smirks at Steph, fingers stroking gently across her hairline and carding into the short strands at the base of her skull. Steph sighs like she wishes she could curl into the touch, and Natasha smirks a little harder to cover how much that reaction makes her melt.

“This is too much like before,” Steph says suddenly, the words spilling out. “Being sick. Being weak. All I have to offer is the strength, and that’s the serum. And if that was given to me, then maybe it could be taken away. And then where would I be? Where would _we_ be? I don’t... there’s no-one left who knew me when I was just me. It’s like I would disappear.”

“Never going to happen,” Natasha says, with confidence that is one hundred percent real. She’s not surprised Steph feels this way -- it’s a logical fear to have -- although she wishes Steph was more confident of her. Then again, she supposes she’s not the most transparent person to date. Much as she is trying to be. Sort of. Mostly.

Ok, it’s a thing she needs to work on.

“No?” Steph asks, then groans. “Forget I asked, forget I said any of this.”

“No,” Natasha says firmly. “Anything happens with the serum, you are staying in the Tower. You’re one of us, no matter what. And nothing changes with me. My respect, and my feelings, have nothing to do with how fast you can heal or how often you get sick. The only difference is, there is no way I will let you drop in on a mad scientist without backup. And since that was never going to happen again _anyway_...”

“You were right, you know,” Steph says, calmed and rueful. “About today... you were right. I’m sorry. I needed backup. I was being arrogant.”

“ _You_ were right,” Natasha says. “We lost people. I shouldn’t have been so quick to discount that. I just...” ... _needed you safe_ , she doesn’t say. Her fingers tighten in Steph’s hair until it’s wrapped taut, and then she remembers where she is and lets go, pulling her hand completely back, breaking contact.

“We were both right,” Steph concedes. She tries to fight back a yawn, but the yawn wins, and she sends Natasha an apologetic look.

“And wrong,” Natasha adds. Steph huffs out a little laugh and turns about ten percent greener.

Time to move on. “You’re here for the night, right?” Natasha asks.

“Yes.” Steph sounds half-grumpy, half-panicky at the prospect.

“Want some company?”

“Really?” Steph looks up at her with puppy-dog eyes like she’s just been offered a trip to Disneyland and a lifetime supply of chocolate rolled into one.

“Sure. Medical sucks.” It sucks a _lot_ , actually, and Natasha has spent more time than she’ll admit here, and she wouldn’t offer this for anyone else. So it’s maybe not completely honest to act like it’s not a big deal, but she’s pretty sure Steph would try to send her away for her own good if she copped to what it actually means, and then they would just have another argument and no-one would be happy, so...

“Yes!” Steph latches onto the offer with both hands, then hesitates. “I mean, you don’t have to. I mean, I’ll be okay if...”

She looks terrible -- exhausted and seasick and somehow simultaneously pale and flushed and green-tinged. It makes Natasha -- illogically, irresistibly -- want to kiss her.

So she does.

Soft, on the temple, one hand cupping Steph’s cheek, careful not to jostle her.

When she straightens, Steph is looking up at her with a sleepy, sappy expression filled with something Natasha won’t name.

“That was nice,” she says, sounding surprised. Natasha smiles a little and slides her hand up from Steph’s cheek to play with her hair. It gets her out of talking, which is good, because she doesn’t know what to say. It’s weird to see Steph so... not in charge. Even when she’s off the clock, even when she’s having one of her adorable awkward moments, Steph always self-possessed in her own way, thrumming with contained power and innate focus and direction. Now she’s over-exposed and foundering, and while Natasha appreciates the chance to glimpse a little further into Steph’s head, she knows Steph has a thing about privacy and she doesn’t want to wander in too far.

“Push over a little,” she says, and Steph obeys, her eyes soft and grateful. Natasha kicks off her shoes, does a quick locker-room change to relieve herself of her bra, and slides into the narrow infirmary bed next to Steph, who makes a muffled noise of contentment.

“Wake me up if you need anything,” she orders. This is far enough out of her comfort range that she expects she’ll be awake most of the night. Worth it, though.

“Mm-hmm.” Steph is already mostly asleep.

Natasha curls up next to her, close enough to share body heat, but not quite touching. She startles a little when Steph nuzzles into her hair, murmuring something under her breath, and then the simple affection of the touch brings a wave of overwhelming relief and she feels all the tension of the day drain out of her.

Ten minutes later, when Tony checks the security camera, they are draped all over each other, sound asleep.


	11. Acclimatization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More bonding in Medical (why do people always end up bonding in Medical??)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY. Real life, cross-country move, grad school, new job, crazy fall, writer’s block, agonizing existential crisis about my purpose in the universe, blah blah blah. I absolutely guarantee I _will_ finish this story, but updates might be a bit slower than they were originally, going forward. Now that I’ve broken through whatever plot block I had going on, there shouldn’t be another gap like this one, though. Have patience with me. I have now learned the hard way the folly of starting to post a WIP before the whole thing is at least mapped out. :/ Ok, that said, on with the story.

Natasha wakes to the feel of someone next to her, an unknown arm around her waist. The smell of rubber gloves and antiseptic is heavy in the air. In an instant, she has the arm twisted up, one good jolt away from breaking, behind the shoulder, her knee pressed roughly in the small of the back. Her breath is ragged, heavy. 

“Natasha?” Steph asks, her voice muffled by the pillow.

Shit. Stephanie. Shit.

Natasha eases back on the arm, trying to make the contours of the room fit together. She wants to let go completely and she just... can’t. Steph starts talking, a low and steady stream of nonsense, and she’s not moving, which helps, even though Natasha knows Steph could break the hold in an instant, ill or not. She realizes her knee is still digging into Steph’s back, Steph who was just hurt yesterday, and slowly -- slowly -- shifts her weight to the side and inches back until she’s crouched at the edge of the bed, all the sleep drained from her.

“Sorry,” she whispers. “Shit, sorry. Shit.”

Steph rolls onto her side, keeping both hands visible as she rests her head on her elbows. She has uncharacteristic circles under her eyes but is considerably less green than she was the night before, Natasha notes distantly. “Deep breaths,” Steph says, her clear eyes shadowed and empathetic.

Natasha nods and gulps in air.

“Slower,” Steph says, her voice low and smooth. She doesn’t move. Natasha counts to three as she inhales, six as she exhales. This is a thing that hasn’t happened in a very long time. She breathes in again – one, two, three – and out. Steph holds her gaze for the full count.

“Good,” she says. “You’re good.” Natasha nods and breathes.

“Sorry,” she says again, finally, when her breathing is steady and she’s feeling back to herself enough to be horribly uncomfortable with what she’s just shown Steph. “Ah, are you all right?”

She reaches across the neutral zone of space between them to prod tentatively at Steph’s shoulder.

Steph snorts. “General achiness and nausea aside?” She captures Natasha’s hand, forestalling her guilty wince. “You know, you can’t hurt me. I mean, I think you probably could if you meant to, but I don’t think you could do it by accident. Not before you’d even woken up. That doesn’t need to be on your list of things to worry about.”

Natasha sighs and flops onto her back, keeping the space between them intact but allowing their joined hands to bridge it. Steph’s hand is warm and dry and a little larger than her own, and her touch is achingly gentle. Natasha brushes her thumb back and forth over the smooth skin between Steph’s knuckles and hears her breath catch.

“I wonder sometimes,” Natasha says into the dark, to the ceiling, “if this is a thing I can do. Waking up next to someone. Fighting down all those instincts that have me attacking the moment I’m conscious.”

It’s Steph’s turn to take a deep breath. Natasha wonders what’s running through her head. “I think you can do anything,” Steph says, all honesty and faith.

Natasha stares into the dark, silent. She’s not sure she’s ever heard a more terrifying statement.

“We could, um, practice,” Steph suggests.

Natasha turns her head and raises an eyebrow. It’s probably a less effective deflection-slash-intimidation technique when she’s horizontal and clammy with memories. “Practice?”

“You know,” Steph gives an awkward one-shouldered shrug and what is obviously meant to be a winning smile but comes across more shy. “Practice. Falling asleep. Waking up. Resting together.” She releases Natasha’s hand and extends her arm like an invitation, just barely touching. “Like acclimatization training.”

Natasha can’t help snorting a little at that. Steph looks hurt, and it gives Natasha the impetus she needs to reach fully across the space between them and lay a tentative hand on Steph’s cheek. “I’m not laughing at you. Just at me.”

“I’m against that, too,” Steph says, and Natasha dips her chin in acknowledgment. Steph doesn’t move, just presses her cheek into Natasha’s palm, and that makes it… simple, somehow. Natasha awkwardly scoots herself across the bed, drapes her arm around Steph’s waist, and tucks her head into the soft angle of her shoulder. It’s surprisingly easy, and after a moment she hooks a leg across one of Steph’s to pull herself in until she’s sprawled half on top of her. Natasha shudders briefly at the full-body contact and catalogs Steph’s answering shiver in the back of her mind as they both instinctively squeeze closer. Steph’s arm comes around her shoulder, maneuvering her head into a more comfortable position, and she can feel Steph’s breath stirring the hair at her temples. Natasha is hyperaware of every point of contact. _Breathe_ , she reminds herself.

“So, how do you know I have a worry list anyway?” Natasha asks, trying to ignore her body’s instinctive reaction, half alert anxiety, half boneless relief.

There’s a pause. “Because I have one,” Steph admits.

Natasha smiles a little. “They certainly didn’t choose a team named the Avengers for our ability to let things go,” she concedes drily.

“We all have our special coping skills,” Stephs says, soft, like she’s not sure whether she’s defending them or piling on.

“Indeed. Clint finds new ways to merge archery and ordnance, Bruce experiments on himself, you systematically destroy the country’s supply of punching bags, Tony creates artificially intelligent pets, and Coulson does paperwork. Paperwork. To _relax_.”

Steph sighs, her grip tightening momentarily, then releasing. “What about Thor?”

“Mmm. I think he joined a local Shakespeare troupe. Exception that proves the rule.”

Steph barks out a laugh, is silent for a moment, and then laughs again. The vibrations tickle Natasha’s cheek.

“We should go see him perform,” she says to Steph’s chest. And yeah, now that she’s this close, it’s a _really nice_ chest. Not that she should be noticing that right now. “Avengers field trip.”

“Team bonding and all that,” Steph agrees, and Natasha can hear the smile in her voice. She cuddles closer. She can deny it all tomorrow.

“Pity the troupe that claims him,” is Natasha’s final word on the subject, but she’s relaxed now, smiling too, deliciously warm, and about ten seconds away from arching against Steph like a cat.

“How do _you_ let off steam?”

“Rachmaninoff is nice. Also, hitting things.” She tries to regulate her breathing as Steph trails light fingers up and down her carotid artery, where her hair has fallen back. From anyone else, that kind of touch would be a threat; from Steph, it’s a pledge of protection. She is surprisingly okay with that. “I used to volunteer at a dog shelter. Before I became someone people recognized. Dogs are…” Dogs are simple and wide-open with affection. “I like dogs.”

Steph cards her fingers through her hair, traces the whorls of her ear. Natasha can feel the touch all the way to her toes. She doesn’t think it’s intentional. “Did you ever want to bring one home?” Steph asks.

Every single one. “It’s hard to find a dogsitter when you’re leaving for weeks at a time to assassinate foreign dictators.”

“You know, maybe Tony—“

Natasha reaches up and lays a hand over Steph’s mouth, which goes still and then quirks slightly. She can hear Steph’s heart rate pick up.

“We can be quiet, too,” Natasha says. “I feel better. We don’t need to talk right now.” She twists to face Steph head-on, rubs her finger over Steph’s bottom lip, and takes her hand away.

“Okay,” Steph breathes. Her gaze flicks to Natasha’s mouth, then back to her eyes. There’s no sleep left in her body; Natasha can feel tension coiling in every muscle that’s pressed against her, banked and eager. All the adrenaline from her earlier panic has redirected itself into desire, and she wants to dive in, wants to wrap herself around Steph, erase any distance left between them and lose herself in sensation. She wants to let go.

Slow, she reminds herself. She lifts her head, dragging herself up to see Steph’s expression more clearly. She looks dazed, and her breath catches every time Natasha moves.

“Hi,” Natasha says, and mentally kicks herself for being completely inane.

“Oh god,” says Steph. “Can you please just kiss me now?”

Natasha smiles -- _so polite_ \-- and then she leans down a little, waits until Steph stops breathing entirely, and complies.

Steph’s lips are warm and responsive, soft with sleep, and her body beneath Natasha’s hums with life. She locks both arms around Natasha, trapping her close, and Natasha is shocked to realize that she doesn’t mind, that it actually feels… good. Secure. She leans back experimentally and Steph’s hands fall easily away, letting Natasha go without any hesitation but pausing in their descent to caress her hips. A hint of concern creeps into her eyes, and before she can say anything to break the moment, Natasha is on her, all fierce gratitude and desperate affection, kissing without any finesse or calculation or thought beyond trying to pour all of herself into the kiss.

Steph groans and surges up into the kiss, twining one hand in Natasha’s hair and locking the other around her back to keep her close. Natasha can feel her longing in the infinitesimal tremors that shake her body, the heartbeat that is practically pounding itself out of Stephanie’s chest and into Natasha’s. Natasha cradles Steph’s face like it’s precious and breakable, grips her neck like someone is trying to pull her away, presses her into the bed, and surrenders to the kiss like nothing she’s ever done before.

Everything is warmth and want and joy and touch, and time just… hovers, like it can spin out endlessly without ever needing to leave this place, like it doesn’t exist, like it never needs to move forward again because it’s finally reached the perfect moment.

So she’s unprepared when Steph suddenly yanks her mouth away, rolls out from under her, and sneezes six times in quick succession, each sneeze wetter and more violent than the last.

Natasha rubs a gentle hand over Steph’s back and tries to reboot her brain. “Only our lives,” she says, wrecked and trying for suave, and Steph just looks back at her, holding her nose with a bedraggled expression that speaks of reluctantly amused misery.

“Hey,” Natasha says, pushing a strand of hair off of Steph’s forehead, and then pauses when her brain doesn’t supply anything else to say. “Perhaps we should go back to sleep,” she offers finally.

Steph makes a face and promptly sneezes again, and her eyes cross, eyebrows descending forcefully like she’s trying to turn the patented Captain America Stern Glare of Disapproval on her own nose. Natasha… absolutely does not giggle, and she will defend that claim with her life. She chuckles, or maybe snorts, and then covers it with a cough until Steph’s expression relaxes into a reluctant, self-deprecating smile.

“At least you’re feeling better,” Steph observes.

Natasha smirks. “Much.”

Steph sighs and reaches to the side of the bed for a tissue. “Goddamn zombie flu,” she says, snorts at her own words, and blows her nose. When she lies back down, she extends her arm again and looks at Natasha with quiet invitation.

 _Only my life_ , Natasha thinks, but no, this is something entirely new. This is something apart.

She curls up on top of Steph and sleeps through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why does Thor join a local Shakespeare troupe? Well, because in her absolutely gorgeous fic [Ride It Out, Wait It Out](http://archiveofourown.org/works/522664/chapters/924400), BGB explains that she writes Thor’s voice as how she imagines Patrick Stewart speaks in his everyday life, which is pretty much just the best description of both Thor and Patrick Stewart ever. Hence, my small shout-out.


	12. Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More zombie-flu recovery, and Phil is an awesome relationship advice ninja.

“I forgot to mention this earlier, but I saw Tony leaving Bruce’s lab last night at 3 a.m.” Natasha is... the word should be puttering, except that Steph is quite certain that Natasha Romanov does not putter. She’s in the kitchen doing something with a skillet, trying to pretend the whole cooking process doesn’t frazzle her.

“Really?” Steph twists around to look at Natasha from where she’s sketching on the couch. Two days after the Zombie Incident, as the Avengers have taken to calling it in hushed and horrified tones, she’s feeling mostly back to normal, continuing achiness aside. Natasha, however, is still convinced that she should not be allowed to do any work or go anywhere.

Pro: There are only a few ways to pass the time without having to walk around or even sit up, and one of those is making out. A lot.

Con: Natasha, in what she terms “common sense” and what Steph (with Clint to back her up) terms “utter hypocrisy to a hilarious and astonishing degree,” won’t go past first base (though Steph will concede that first base can get surprisingly creative) until Steph is given a clean bill of health by a certified medical professional.

Pro: Fussing over Steph gives Natasha just enough to do that she’s relaxed more in the last two days than Steph knew she could, teasing Steph constantly (and taking as good as she gets), volunteering personal information (small stuff, but still), and touching Steph absently and often, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to bump shoulders affectionately as they navigate the narrow halls of the apartment. Like it’s nothing at all to press a simple, melting kiss just underneath Steph’s ear, Natasha’s hair falling over both their faces as she leans over the arm of the couch to reach Steph’s reclining form, murmuring “dinner in ten” as she draws back and retreats to the kitchen.

Con: Natasha can’t cook, and she doesn’t know it.

It would be endearing if it wasn’t so... charred/runny/rubbery/frozen. And that’s not even taking into account the Great Egg Disaster That Shall Not Be Named.

And Natasha just shrugs and tucks in to whatever she’s made, which Steph is pretty sure has less to do with her confidence levels and more to do with her not having had regular food as a child, or homecooked food ever, and judging everything against SHIELD MREs. Steph isn’t sure that’s a conversation either of them is ready to have yet, so she just... clears her plate like it’s a mission. Nutrients are nutrients. Maybe when she’s feeling better, they will go back to normal, whatever that is for them, and she can find non-suspicious ways to make sure Natasha never cooks again.

“When he saw me, he blushed. _Tony Stark_ blushed.” The vegetable surprise medley that Natasha has in the saute pan starts to sizzle (which is a nice way of saying “burn”) and Natasha turns down the heat and starts pushing at it with a spatula. “It was like seeing a unicorn.” She pauses, considering. “Without the screaming and impaling and death.” Steph shoots her an alarmed look, and Natasha shrugs. “Thor. Clint was asking. He has a thing about unicorns. You don’t want to know.”

Steph shakes her head and settles back down on the couch. “Speaking of Clint,” she says, “I think we should get Phil to come to movie night.”

“I like it,” Natasha says approvingly. “Watch them squirm.” She pokes at the food some more.

“So how do we trick him into it?” Natasha is silent, preoccupied by the food, so Steph folds over a new page and, on a whim, starts sketching Clint being menaced by a wild-eyed unicorn, Phil crouched low around a corner, eyes creased with worry and a certain resigned “this is my life?” incredulousness, in the moment before he jumps in to save the day. Natasha snorts, inches from her ear, and she startles. She’s not used to the crazy ninja stealth thing yet.

“Who says anything about tricks?” Natasha asks. “You think his heart can withstand an invitation from his favorite childhood superhero?” She reviews her words and winces. “Heart metaphors are far too linguistically prevalent for people in our line of work.”

“I know what you meant,” Steph says, and tries not to think about the long, long hours when everyone thought Coulson was dead in the line of duty. Natasha dishes out the food in silence, her expression pensive.

The food. It’s just… staggeringly terrible. And Steph ate military rations in the 1940s; she _knows_ terrible. She squares her shoulders, opens her mouth, and soldiers on, because… ok, she isn’t sure she even has a good reason at this point, she’s just damn stubborn.

When Steph looks up, Natasha is studying her, equal parts amusement and accusation in her eyes.

“You can barely stand to eat this, can you?”

“Um,” Steph says.

Natasha raises one eyebrow. “You think my cooking is terrible, don’t you?”

“Um,” Steph says.

“Thank God,” Natasha says. “I hate cooking. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You were trying so hard. I didn’t know how to tell you. And I thought... I mean, you seemed to like it?” She hates to think of Natasha pretending with her. “Why were you doing it if you hate it?”

“It’s... what people do. When someone is sick, yes? Make them soup?” They both allow a moment of silence to remember the pyrrhic cauldron of doom that was Natasha’s attempt at chicken noodle. “Food is lo-- er, important. Food is important. To, ah, Americans. Like you. It’s how you... care.”

“Food is important,” Steph echoes, feeling weirdly protective of Natasha’s terrible cooking and emotional constipation. Food is love, indeed. “Have you never had anything that wasn’t from a SHIELD cafeteria?”

“I can’t taste anything when I’m on missions. Too revved. Bruce’s stuff is nice, but this is fine for me.”

“Let me cook dinner for you sometime. Next week?”

“Why, Captain America, we’ll make a domestic goddess of you yet. Will you put on your spangle-skirt?”

“You,” Steph says, “are so lucky I’m sick. I will put on my spangle-skirt when you pin me to the ground and make me.” There’s a charge to the silence that follows that pronouncement. Natasha’s eyes are molten. “And I’d like to see you try,” Steph adds for good measure.

“Would you?” Natasha asks, promise in her tone.

Steph shivers. She really, really would.

**********

Phil drops by a few days later to take her temperature and some blood samples.

“All that and a doctor, too?” Steph jokes.

“Actually, I got my nursing degree, back in the day,” he says, and honest-to-god grins at her as he locates a vein. “So many of my colleagues have a pathological distrust of hospitals -- well-earned, I might add -- I keep my certification up, do as much in the field and private, ah, house calls as I can.”

“From nursing to SHIELD,” Steph muses, tensing slightly as the needle slides home. “That’s... um, quite a transition.”

Phil’s smile has a shy edge to it as he carefully fills the first tube and replaces it with a practiced hand. “Not as much as you might think, actually.”

“Oh?” Steph asks.

Phil caps the second tube. “Last one,” he says, attaching a third. Steph watches the blood splash into the test tube. It’s surreal. She’s never been squeamish, but after so many years of being a lab experiment, her blood doesn’t even feel like it belongs to her. It’s an abstraction, leaving her body.

“I was in the ER, then the Army, and then I met Nick,” Phil finally says, breaking the silence with what Steph is sure is a vast oversimplification of actual events.

“And the rest is history?” she quips. Phil laughs softly as he caps the third tube.

“It all seemed perfectly logical at the time.” He presses gauze against the entry point and smoothly withdraws the needle. “There you go, Captain.” He places her hand on top of the gauze. “Hold this for a moment.” The tape he withdraws from a drawer is, Steph is horrified to realize, emblazoned with cartoon designs like a child’s bandaid – and they’re of her. Trading card images. Phil catches her horrified glance and explains, absolutely blank-faced, “We’re all out of the plain stuff, sorry. Busy week. We keep this roll around for the new recruits.” But there’s a muscle twitching suspiciously in his jaw and he doesn’t actually look all that sorry.

Steph studies him, and he raises a brow. “I’m trying to decide which is worse: if that is actually true or if you’re pulling my leg.”

Phil… _twinkles_ at her. It’s downright unsettling. “Natasha used to tell me,” he confides in a deceptively mild tone that lets her know this change in direction is purely calculated, “that if I ever went evil, there wouldn’t be any hope for the world because it would take everyone too long to figure out that I was any different.”

It’s a bare sliver of an opening, but Steph seizes it with both hands. “You’ve known Natasha a long time, haven’t you?”

Phil’s lips quirk as he studies her with a mixture of assessment and affection. “Long enough to know how extraordinary it is for her to pursue something -- someone -- she wants.”

“But she’s… she seems happy? With how things are going?”

Phil smiles. “Yes. She does.”

“It’s hard to tell sometimes, and I don’t… I can’t let her down.”

Phil takes a moment to pull a chair across from where she’s seated and neatly sinks into it so they’re at a level. His gaze is steady. “Natasha is very important to me,” he says. “She’s family, as much as people like me and Clint have a family. And if I could have chosen anyone for her, it would have been you. I don’t think you’re going to let her down, Captain. Stephanie. I have faith in you. So does Natasha, or this wouldn’t be happening at all.”

“It’s not... I don’t... I’m not very experienced,” Steph grits out.

A flicker of sympathy passes through Phil’s eyes. “That won’t matter to her.”

Steph blows out a noisy breath. Her face feels hot enough to heat a small arctic nation. “I’m sorry. You’re our handler, not our counselor.”

Phil appears to come to some sort of decision as he meets her eyes. “There are other areas – trust, optimism, kindness – in which you are the expert. Natasha would… count these as more important. And more, ah, intimidating. She will share your worries. Just… be patient. Be grateful. And… maybe take her somewhere for a weekend. Get away from all,” he gestures, “this.”

“We can… do that?” Steph asks, feeling a little stupid. After so many months of having her every movement regulated by Fury, it’s hard to believe that she can just take off anywhere that’s not mission-approved.

“Well, I’d prefer if you’d give us some warning. And leave a number where we can reach you. And a location. I promise not to share it with Stark.” He rolls his eyes. “Or Clint.” He sighs. “Or Fury. Nothing to do with Natasha, but I do not envy you this courtship, Captain.”

“Stephanie,” she corrects him. “Or Steph. Really.” She rises and shrugs on an army issue jacket over her tank top (she refuses to call them wife-beaters no matter how many times Tony tells her it isn’t meant to be literal, because, just, ugh). “And, um,” she fidgets with the buttons a little, “thank you for the advice, sir.”

“Phil is fine,” he assures her, and his ears turn red. She’s a little charmed. He clears his throat. “I’ll take this to the SHIELD labs; they should have results for you tomorrow. Keep taking it easy, but, knock on wood, you seem to be healed up.”

She inclines her head and opens the door to leave. “Ah, you should really join us for movie night sometime, sir,” she says, like it’s an afterthought. “Team bonding and all. You should be part of it.”

He looks surprised and gratified before his normal bland mask slides back across his features. “Captain, there are limits to even _my_ fearlessness.”

She laughs.

**********

A day later, she presents her SHIELD-certified clean bill of health to Natasha with an air of triumph. “Wanna go punch stuff and then get burgers?”

“Hell, yes,” is Natasha’s immediate answer. Steph grins.

She’s a little disappointed that the “stuff’ Natasha has in mind to punch is limited to bags and dummies, but she’s smart enough not to complain when Natasha fixes her with a stern glare and pronounces “No sparring yet” in a not-to-be-disobeyed tone that makes Steph’s knees a little weak. Natasha smirks, back in her element.

It feels good to sweat again, heart-rate up, endorphins coursing through her. It feels like her body is her own again. After the workout winds down she crowds Natasha against the door of the gym and pours her exhilaration into a sweaty, grope-y, no-holds-barred kiss until an arrow embeds itself in the wood next to her ear, causing Steph to jump three feet in the air and Natasha to roll her eyes in annoyance and shout something in Russian toward the ceiling. It doesn’t sound complimentary.

 _Get a room!_ is written on a note attached to the arrow. Natasha yanks it out of the wall and turns it over. _No, seriously. Forest Hideaways Rustic Cabins, Friday-Tuesday, 3pm check-in, you’re welcome_ is written on the back.

“Um,” Steph says.

“Did you plan this?” Natasha demands in a tone that leaves Steph uncertain as to whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing if she had.

“Phil suggested we should… and then I think I nodded? I didn’t mean to…”

“And then Clint was hiding in the air vents and overheard, and he went to Tony, and the whole thing got _out of control_ because, well, Clint and Tony.” Natasha is nodding, not looking at Steph. “It’s fine, Cap, I’m not holding you to it.”

“Actually, I’d really like to go,” Steph says simply, and Natasha’s eyes snap to hers. “I mean, only if you do. But it would be nice to get away with you. No pressure. But, I’m in if you are.”

Natasha examines her like a particularly perplexing puzzle, then nods slowly, one side of her mouth quirking in an expression that is now quite relaxed enough to call a smile but certainly seems like a step in the right direction. “Let’s do it.”

Steph beams. She’s leaning in for another kiss when Natasha sweeps her legs out from under her and pins her to the floor.

“Clint,” she says loudly, “If you value your life and vision I would suggest you exit the premises _now_.”

It’s a long time before they get to their respective showers.

Steph turns her water as cold as it will go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand the next chapter will be their trip. And I SWEAR I will finally earn the M rating for this thing.


End file.
